Former Carlsbad attorney Michael Theodore Pines, 60, was taken back into custody last month, according to online records of the San Diego County Sheriff.

Charges listed on the sheriff’s website include stalking and making criminal threats.

In past court appearances, Pines’s mental competency has been questioned. On some occasions, Pines has attempted to represent himself in court. Court documents suggest that Pines has threatened to sue attorneys that had worked to represent him but then disappointed.

The district attorney’s office has filed up to 25 different charges against Pines in the past, including practicing law while disbarred and false reporting of a crime.

Pines has positioned himself as a champion of persons who were losing their homes to foreclosure. The unusual attorney reportedly invited television news cameras to follow him as he assisted his clients trying to get back into homes from which they had been evicted, even arranging locksmiths to open the front door.

Deputy district attorney James Romo said it was over a year ago, in February of 2011, when Pines threatened specific persons who had moved into a home from which Pines’s clients had been evicted. “Mr. Pines is completely and utterly out of control,” the prosecutor said.

The sheriff’s website suggests Michael Theodore Pines has a court appearance scheduled in the downtown courthouse in May.

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Editor's note: There are 2 attorneys named Michael Pines, the other is a personal injury attorney in La Jolla.