Ex-Mrs. Shojaee sues current Mrs. Shojaee for defamation

Lawsuit accuses Shoma President Stephanie Shojaee of making false statements about her husband’s daughters and former spouse during a podcast

Shoma’s Stephanie Shojaee and Masoud Shojaee
Shoma’s Stephanie Shojaee and Masoud Shojaee (Shoma Group, United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, Getty)

The animosity between Shoma Group President Stephanie Shojaee and her husband’s daughters and ex-wife has boiled over to Miami-Dade Circuit Court.

In a lawsuit filed on Friday, the ex-wife, Maria Lamas, and daughters, Anelise Shojaee and Lilibet Shojaee, accuse Stephanie Shojaee of defaming them when she discussed her career and her romance with her now husband, Shoma CEO Masoud Shojaee, during a podcast interview in December. 

“The false and spiteful statements portrayed Ms. Lamas as incompetent, careless, lazy, and hateful,” the complaint states. “And portrayed the daughters as ungrateful, spiteful and overall dreadful women who have abused the goodwill and kindness of Mr. Shojaee.”

The Shoma developer power couple did not respond to text messages seeking comment. Frank Silva, Shoma’s general counsel, and Jose Ferrer, an attorney who represents Masoud and Stephanie Shojaee, also did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Anelise and Lilibet Shojaee
Anelise and Lilibet Shojaee (Facebook/Shoma Group)

“The goal of any family should be reunification,” said Luis Suarez, the lawyer for Lamas, Anelise Shojaee and Lilibet Shojaee. “Spreading falsity and defamatory statements detracts from that goal. We look forward to our day in court.” 

This is the second time Stephanie Shojaee’s 36-minute interview on “Divorced Not Dead,” a podcast hosted by Bravo reality television star Caroline Stanbury, incites legal action. Last month, Stephanie and Masoud Shojaee filed their own defamation lawsuit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court against Miami realtor Joanne Silva for an online allegedly nasty comment the agent made about the Shoma president.

Under a Jan. 5 post on The Real Deal’s Instagram account about Stephanie Shojaee’s podcast interview, Silva commented that Masoud Shojaee “stole money from his daughters’ trust fund to buy elaborate gifts for this gold digger” — referring to Stephanie Shojaee. The complaint also claims that Silva suggested Stephanie is a prostitute. 

In addition to running the Coral Gables-based development firm Shoma alongside her husband, Stephanie Shojaee is a notable social media influencer with nearly half a million followers on Instagram. She regularly posts photos and videos of herself and her husband in luxury designer duds, jet setting to Europe and exotic locales on their private plane, and working at the office. Her posts are usually accompanied with inspirational quotes about female empowerment. 

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She married Masoud Shojaee in 2019, a year after he finalized his divorce from Lamas, who co-founded Shoma. 

The defamation lawsuit filed by Lamas and her daughters contains transcribed excerpts of Stephanie Shojaee’s “Divorced Not Dead” interview, in which she claims she began dating Masoud when he was separated from Lamas, but that she was not the reason he got divorced. 

According to the excerpts, Stephanie claimed Lamas rarely complimented Masoud on his looks and nagged him until he was miserable. She also answered affirmatively when Stanbury asked her if she thought Lamas “sort of poisoned them” about how Anelise and Lilibet feel about their father. 

“[Mr. Shojaee and I are] an unstoppable force versus when he was with his ex-wife, who wasn’t a workaholic, didn’t go to work, didn’t really care so much,” one excerpt states. “She spent probably more money. She just didn’t have social media to flaunt it.”

In another excerpt, Stephanie Shojaee said Anelise and Lilibet did not appreciate what Masoud Shojaee had provided for them, and that “they would rather sacrifice the relationship with their father than have to put up with their father [being] with me.”

In a third excerpt, Stephanie Shojaee also claimed that Masoud’s daughters sold homes he bought for them, and changed addresses and phone numbers so he doesn’t know where they live. “It’s just so crazy,” she said. “I find it so upsetting. I just don’t understand how that happens.”

In their defamation complaint, Anelise and Lilibet Shojaee allege Stephanie Shojaee made false statements about them as retaliation because they have two pending lawsuits in Miami-Dade Circuit Court alleging Masoud Shojaee unlawfully withdrew $6.7 million from a bank account of a company owned by a trust benefiting the daughters.