ISLINGTON, St Mary — Former firebrand talk show host and attorney-at-law Antonette Haughton-Cardenas is dead.

She died Friday morning in the United States where she had resided for more than 15 years. According to Jamaica Observer sources Haughton-Cardenas had been ailing for some time with an undisclosed illness. She was 67.

She shot to national prominence in the 1990s as a controversial talk show host who championed the rights of the vulnerable. Then in 2002 she helped launch the now-defunct political organisation, the United People’s Party.

However, Haughton-Cardenas found herself on the wrong side of the law after being accused of misappropriating funds from one of her clients in 2009. That same year the General Legal Council, acting upon a recommendation by its disciplinary committee, struck her from the roll of attorneys allowed to do legal work in Jamaica.

When her case came before the Corporate Area Court in December 2009, her attorney, Terrence Ballentine, told Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey that his client was sick and the warrant was stayed. But when Haughton-Cardenas did not show for a mention date in another matter in St Thomas two months later, a warrant was issued for her arrest. The stay on the first warrant was also lifted.

The disgraced lawyer fled the country and stayed away even during her father’s funeral in June 2012.

Haughton-Cardenas was born in Islington, St Mary in a family steeped in politics. Her parents were activists for the People’s National Party.

She passed the Common Entrance Exam and went to St Hugh’s High School in Kingston where she developed a love for history and a strong interest in the Black Power Movement of the 60s.

— Ingrid Henry