In 2020, Hammocks board President Marglli Gallego allegedly suggested that Monica Ghilardi should get paid for her work as the homeowners association’s treasurer.
But there was a problem. Because Florida law says HOA board members are volunteers prohibited from receiving compensation, a workaround was needed.
Enter Dante Chauca, Ghilardi’s husband.
To pull it off, an HOA employee incorporated Albri Consulting LLC with the state and listed Chauca as its manager, according to court filings. The Hammocks board then transferred HOA funds to Albri, disguising them as legitimate vendor services payments and allowing for money to eventually be diverted from Albri to Ghilardi. From 2020 to 2022, Albri received $291,681 from Hammocks coffers.
Chauca’s role in the gambit was hardly an isolated case at the Hammocks.
At the West Kendall HOA, which is one of Florida’s biggest, four former board members were arrested in 2022 over misappropriating millions of dollars from the residential community by hiring bogus contractors that did little to no work. Ghilardi and another ex-board member, Myriam Rodgers, pleaded guilty this year, are cooperating with investigators and received reduced sentences. Yoleidis Lopez Garcia and Gallego, the alleged ringleader, have pleaded not guilty.
The Hammocks, home to the worst alleged fraud scheme in South Florida, became the poster child among troubled HOAs and condo associations in the tri-county region, where allegations abound of board mismanagement, election interference, plundering of accounts and bullying of those who speak out. This year, the Florida Legislature strengthened the law, tailoring the HOA legislation to address exactly the type of wrongdoing alleged at the Hammocks.
As investigators continue to peel back the layers of what transpired at the Hammocks, another facet of the ploy has crystallized: Board members leaned on family to help them execute their plan.
“Several board members had relatives who owned fictional companies … used to funnel monies from the HOA to relatives under the guise of vendor payments,” an investigator wrote in an October court filing.
Three Gallego relatives were arrested on charges they aided the alleged fraud. At least six other relatives of various board members, including Chauca, have popped up in court filings, though none of them have been criminally charged.
At South Florida HOAs and condo associations embroiled in alleged fraud, it’s common for board members’ families to have a connection to the schemes, experts say.
Under state law, it’s legal to hire a family member’s firm as an association vendor, though board members are required to disclose the hiring and relationship. Issues come when the family member charges more than the market rate costs for the same job or is hardly completing any work, raising into question whether both the board member and their relative are profiteering by plundering HOA coffers.
“It’s just like the allegations you see in government, giving contracts to family members. These people didn’t have to
be the brightest individuals to come up with the scheme.”
“It’s just like the allegations you see in government, giving contracts to family members,” said Alessandra Stivelman, an attorney for HOAs and condo associations. “These people didn’t have to be the brightest individuals to come up with the scheme.”
Whether all of the relatives so far tied to the Hammocks case willingly participated in the alleged fraud and benefited from it is unclear. Court filings indicate that some, especially those who aren’t criminally charged, didn’t even know their names were used on various documents, including to incorporate supposed vendors, or just signed records that those on the board asked them to sign.
For one, Chauca said in depositions he never authorized the use of his name for Albri and the entity was “created in his name at Gallego’s request.”
What is certain is that at the Hammocks, familial ties ran deeper than what’s been revealed, court filings show, signaling more could be exposed or charged.
A “significant number” of entities that formed right before they started working for the Hammocks were “controlled by friends and relatives of Gallego,” an investigator wrote in a court filing.
Among HOA employees interviewed by investigators, these family and friends were commonly referred to as “los Tios and las Tias,” or Spanish for the uncles and the aunts. In Latin culture, the phrase extends to someone’s actual uncles and aunts, as well as other relatives and also close friends.
“Gallego invented titles for family members,” said Hammocks homeowner Ana Danton. Other “people who were employed here were family members of others on the board.”
The husbands
Gallego’s husband, Jose Antonio Gonzalez, and his Excellent Services & Work never held professional licenses as any type of contractor.
Yet, Excellent Services received more than $1 million from the Hammocks, according to an arrest warrant. It’s the largest amount any of the purported vendors allegedly received from the HOA.
Investigators’ review of the firm’s bank accounts showed checks were signed by board members and issued from different HOA bank accounts — sometimes on the same day. That’s inconsistent with the weekly or monthly payments contractors usually receive, according to the warrant. In 2020, Excellent received 70 percent of the Hammocks’ $370,000 maintenance payroll budget in six months.
Funds in Excellent’s bank accounts went toward airline tickets, credit card bills, groceries, fast food, medical expenses, Airbnb, veterinary bills, school uniforms and the political campaign of another vendor’s son. Also, Gonzalez bought a south Miami-Dade County home partially with HOA funds.
Excellent also had ties to three others identified as Gallego relatives by prosecutors: William Gil, who originally incorporated the entity; Maria M. Alzate, who temporarily served as its vice president; and Carlos Gil, who co-signed Excellent invoices with Gallego and also worked at the HOA office, according to the warrant.
Gonzalez, who was arrested in 2022 along with the board members, has pleaded not guilty.
Lopez Garcia’s husband, Eduardo Barbon, also was another purported vendor to the Hammocks. His Aya Service and Repair Corporation received $164,000 from the HOA from 2017 to 2021, the arrest affidavit says. Lopez Garcia signed several of the checks issued to Aya.
As for Chauca, he testified that Ghilardi had “full control” of Albri’s bank account “since she was paid a salary by the HOA.”
Barbon, Chauca, William and Carlos Gil, and Maria Alzate haven’t been charged in the case. Barbon declined to comment. Attempts to reach Chauca, the Gils and Alzate were unsuccessful.
Attorneys for Gallego, Lopez Garcia and Ghilardi did not return a request for comment.
An attorney for Rodgers, who allegedly signed some of the checks to Excellent, pointed out she has “cooperated fully” with prosecutors “from the onset of this case.”
At 78, Rodgers is the eldest among the charged board members.
Her “age and inexperience were taken advantage of,” attorney Jean-Michel D’Escoubet said in a statement, adding that she was “made a straw member of the board.”
Gonzalez’s attorney said he is “thoroughly vetting” the state’s evidence. “While the outrage of the homeowners is certainly understandable, we believe it is misplaced as related to Mr. Gonzalez,” Jude Faccidomo said in a statement.
The extended family
In 2022, Gallego’s uncle, Ivan Dario Diez, bought the rights to Deco Enterprises for $3,000, according to his arrest warrant. Over the next six months, the firm received $171,917 from the HOA for doing little to no work on the property.
When Diez turned in a series of handwritten invoices in response to subpoenas, the records raised questions for investigators. According to records, Deco charged $4,726 for preparation for and cleanup after a hurricane in August 2022 — a month when there were no named storms. It also cited a $10,300 bill for work over three days for Hurricane Ian the following month, which breaks down to $143 per hour.
Investigators noted that even though the invoices were supposed to have been written at various times during Deco’s employment with the Hammocks, they appear to have been written in the same type of pen and nearly all come in sequential serial numbers.
“It’s the neatest contractor’s invoice I have ever seen,” said Stivelman, the HOAs and condo associations attorney who reviewed the invoices attached to Diez arrest warrant. “Usually, you can’t understand and it’s a bunch of scribbles or numbers.”
The third Gallego relative charged is her cousin Kevin Leonard Alzate, who played a role in the HOA’s dogged fight against investigators’ records subpoenas. In 2020, Alzate said in an affidavit — notarized by a Ghilardi relative — that he is the Hammocks records custodian. But in a court hearing last year over the HOA’s refusal to turn over records, Alzate walked back, saying he “guessed” he was the custodian and adding that a board member asked him to sign the affidavit, according to court filings.
Alzate’s attorney declined to comment.
George Pallas, Diez’s attorney, said he “did legitimate work at the Hammocks” and will be absolved.
Diez “has become an easy target by others who have been offered ridiculously reduced sentences to point the finger at him,” Pallas said. “He has been dragged into this case only because of his family ties to the former president of the HOA.”
The law
Even if someone was unaware of the alleged fraud and signed documents or incorporated entities because their family members on the board asked them to, he or she could still be held liable, said attorney Matt Zifrony.
“Just because the president says, ‘You are my family member, submit these invoices,” you would think it would raise some suspicion. That’s when law enforcement may find you should have done due diligence and by failing to and blindly following what the president was saying, you could be culpable,” said Zifrony, who represents HOAs and condo associations.
The HOA legislation approved this year criminalized board members’ failure to turn over records, destruction of accounting records, and solicitation and acceptance of kickbacks.
Zifrony is skeptical that beefing up the law would stop wrongdoing. State statutes always banned acceptance of kickbacks, and the new legislation simply added the clause to the HOA statute. And making laws stronger wouldn’t have prevented a scheme like the one alleged at the Hammocks.
“You had a person who decided to steal money,” he said. “Adding an additional statute would not have stopped them.”