![\"Florida](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/o21qdndnkr0n8zok.jpg\")
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WEST MELBOURNE, Fla. – A Brevard County man was arrested after authorities said he falsely claimed to be an attorney and attempted to represent a client during a traffic stop.<\/p>\n
According to West Melbourne police, the incident began when officers pulled over a woman and were interviewing her on the roadside.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What we know:<\/p>\n
During the traffic stop, Derek Zachary Schaufus arrived and identified himself as the woman’s lawyer, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Investigators said Schaufus was dressed in a suit, spoke as though he were an attorney and attempted to negotiate with officers on the woman’s behalf.<\/p>\n
CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX LOCAL APP<\/a><\/p>\n Police quickly became suspicious and determined Schaufus was not licensed to practice law in Florida, according to an arrest report.<\/p>\n Authorities arrested Schaufus on charges of practicing law without a license and obstruction by a disguised person.<\/p>\n What they’re saying:<\/p>\n Legal experts said falsely representing oneself as an attorney is a serious offense because it can interfere with legal proceedings and mislead the public.<\/p>\n “It\u2019s a very serious matter when someone has the audacity to impersonate a lawyer,” retired Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Belvin Perry said, describing the case as both unusual and troubling.<\/p>\n SIGN-UP FOR FOX 35’S BREAKING NEWS, DAILY NEWS NEWSLETTERS<\/a><\/p>\n The arrest report also stated that investigators contacted Schaufus’s father, who allegedly laughed when asked whether his son was a licensed attorney and described him as a “street lawyer.”<\/p>\n What we don’t know:<\/p>\n Authorities have not said whether Schaufus represented other people while allegedly posing as an attorney.<\/p>\n Court records were not immediately available showing whether he had retained legal counsel.<\/p>\n The Source: This story was written based on court filings in the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit.<\/p>\n \u00a0 Brevard County News<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST MELBOURNE, Fla. – A Brevard County man was arrested after authorities said he falsely claimed to be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[315,630,47,28,30,29,115,628],"class_list":["post-303533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-brevard-county","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}