In an intense court deposition this month, Masoud Shojaee was grilled about multiple bank transfers involving affiliates of his Coral Gables-based firm, Shoma Group. The funds were transferred into an account of another entity he manages that lent him $13 million.
Throughout the five hour and twenty minute session, tied to a lawsuit filed by his daughters, Shojaee claimed ignorance, often responding that he didn’t know about hundreds of thousands of dollars moving in and out of the coffers of Santa Fe Haciendas. That entity owns land in northwest Miami-Dade that is leased to construction materials giant Cemex for conducting rock mining operations, according to a transcript of the Aug. 16 deposition.
The transfers included $132,000 Santa Fe received last month from the account of a Shoma entity that owns a development site in North Bay Village where Shojaee is planning a 19-story mixed-use project with 327 condos and a retail component anchored by a Publix store. The project, called Shoma Bay, is more than 40 percent pre-sold and broke ground in June, according to published reports.
Florida law prohibits developers from diverting buyer deposits for uses unrelated to the construction of a specific project.
Shojaee was deposed by Patricia Melville, the lawyer representing his daughters, Anilese and Lilibet Shojaee and a trust he set up for them that sued him and Santa Fe in 2020. The pending lawsuit alleges that Shojaee withdrew nearly $8 million from Santa Fe’s funds to pay for his lavish lifestyle, and then claimed the funds were a personal loan after he got caught. The trust benefiting his daughters owns 75 percent of Santa Fe, and Shojaee owns the remaining interest, Miami-Dade Circuit Court records show.
In April, Shojaee extended his personal loan’s maturity date and increased the debt by $5 million, according to the deposition.
Shojaee did not respond to a text requesting comment, and his attorney, Zachary Dickens, did not respond to two emails seeking comment. Melville declined comment.
Family strife
Shojaee has been estranged from his daughters since at least 2018, when his divorce from their mother, Shoma co-founder Maria Lamas, was finalized. The rift is largely about Shojaee’s current wife, Shoma President Stephanie Shojaee, who regularly documents her and her husband’s bon vivant travels to the Mediterranean on super yachts and their affinity for luxury designer goods to her 535,000 followers on Instagram.
In December 2022, Stephanie Shojaee dished about her marriage on a podcast, telling host Caroline Stanbury that Anilese and Lilibet Shojaee don’t speak to their father and rebuffed their attempts to reconcile. The current Mrs. Shojaee claimed the couple started dating when her now-husband was finalizing his divorce from Lamas. She also said “I feel like they never gave me the chance whatsoever” and “when you put me and him together, we’re an unstoppable force, versus when he was with his ex-wife.”
Two months later, Lamas and the daughters sued Stephanie Shojaee for defamation in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, alleging she made “false and spiteful statements” about the ex-wife and “portrayed the daughters as ungrateful, spiteful and overall dreadful women.” The four women reached a confidential private settlement, and the lawsuit was dismissed in October of last year.
Santa Fe lawsuit saga rages on
But Shojaee’s daughters have continued to seek answers from their father about Santa Fe’s finances. The deposition took place just days after Shojaee was vacationing with Stephanie Shojaee in Cannes, France, Instagram posts show.
Under oath, Shojaee admitted that in 2019 he had lawyers draw up a revolving credit agreement for $10 million from Santa Fe that was applied retroactively to withdrawals totaling nearly $8 million from the entity’s bank account since 2015, the deposition shows.
Yet, when he was asked about multiple Santa Fe bank account deposits and withdrawals between 2022 and 2023, Shojaee said he did not know about them, noting that those tasks are usually performed by Shoma CFO Tanya Martin or other employees. For instance, Santa Fe received a deposit of $87,000 on Oct. 26, 2022 from the entity that owns the retail component of Shoma’s Sanctuary Doral mixed-use project.
Shojaee said “whoever processed that” made a mistake and that he “had no idea” why that deposit came from Sanctuary Doral, instead of his personal account. In May of last year, the Santa Fe account had a negative balance and racked up several overdraft charges.
When Melville asked him if he allowed the account to go into arrears, Shojaee said, “I don’t know. I don’t balance the checkbook.” She also asked him if he had personally withdrawn any funds from the Santa Fe account since April of this year. “I don’t recall,” Shojaee replied. “I don’t know. I’m not sure.”
When Melville attempted to ask Shojaee about last month’s $132,000 bank transfer to Santa Fe from the entity that owns the North Bay Village development site and holds buyer deposits, his attorney Dickens objected to the line of questioning.
Melville then asked Shojaee, “Is it your testimony that you didn’t authorize this transfer of funds of $132,000 from Shoma North Bay Village to Santa Fe?”
Shojaee responded: “I do so many transactions, ma’am, that I don’t remember.”