Prominent Lawyer Got Where He Is Despite Arrest Record Beginning with Alleged Burglary at Age 7
Corrected: First arrested at age 7 for burglary, Floyd Lee Downs had added an armed robbery arrest to his rap sheet by the time he was 11. As an adult, he also had issues that included unfiled tax returns, back-due child support and a bar fight that left the other guy with a broken rib and a missing tooth.
Now known as Damon Chase, the new name he selected for himself after cleaning up his life, he is, at 44, not only a successful Florida attorney with a reputation for helping others but president of the Seminole County Bar Association, reports the Orlando Sentinel.
Persuading the Florida Board of Bar Examiners that he should be admitted to practice law despite his background wasn’t easy. But in 2003, a year after he passed the bar exam, with his tax returns filed and his child support paid, Chase accomplished this feat. Fortunately, despite his legal issues, he had never been convicted of a felony, the newspaper notes.
Chase got serious about turning his life around when he was 29. Although they were not close, his grandmother offered him a place to stay, in exchange for doing household chores, and a loan of $8,500 to attend Santa Fe Community College.
Then, after he made it to law school, he got his next big break, in the form of a female fellow classmate he met on his first day there, Melanie Freeman Carter. Also a midlife law student, she is now Chase’s law partner and wife. She is also, he says, his biggest advocate.
“In January, I watched him, in the pouring rain and wearing a suit and tie, stop to change a tire for an elderly couple on I-95,” she told the Board of Bar Examiners in a 2003 letter urging Chase’s admission.
Describing him as an incredible success story, she said, “the board would be hard pressed to find someone who has worked harder to overcome the mistakes of his or her youth.”
Headline corrected at 1:13 p.m. to state that his arrest at age 7 was for alleged burglary.
