Rishi Kapoor is coming clean about his dirty dealings.
As part of his plea deal with federal prosecutors, Kapoor admitted he misappropriated $85 million from investors for his failed real estate projects, including siphoning millions for his personal benefit.
At a Friday hearing in Miami federal court, Kapoor agreed to plead guilty to two money laundering and payroll tax evasion conspiracy charges, capping a scandalous saga that began three years ago when federal regulators and criminal investigators began probing him and Location Ventures, the real estate development firm he founded.
“It is part of my daily prayer that everybody who is not paid back, I will make it my life’s work to pay back,” a somber Kapoor told U.S. Magistrate Judge Marty Fulgueira Elfenbein. “This is a mission of mine that I want to make to the government and the court.”
Though Kapoor’s annual salary had been capped at $400,000, he confessed to collecting millions of dollars he was not authorized to receive, according to his admission to allegations in a factual proffer presented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Young at the hearing. For instance, he paid himself a combined $2.8 million in 2021 and 2022 without shareholder approval. Kapoor used some of the proceeds to finance a 68-foot yacht, a platinum ring and a luxury waterfront home in Cocoplum, a wealthy enclave in Coral Gables.
Kapoor also said he unlawfully used $10.6 million in deposits from buyers who purchased 20 pre-construction units in Location Ventures’ condo projects in Coconut Grove, Coral Gables and Miami Beach. He used the funds to pay bonuses and broker commissions, Young said.
Since Coral Gables-based Location Ventures collapsed in 2023, a court-appointed receiver has been tasked with selling all its assets, including unfinished development sites in Miami-Dade County, to pay back creditors as part of a related federal civil lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. In 2024, the 42-year-old disgraced developer and the SEC entered into a settlement agreement without him admitting or denying the federal agency’s accusations that he misappropriated $93 million from more than 50 investors.
Earlier this year, a grand jury indicted Kapoor on 37 criminal counts, including the money laundering and payroll tax evasion conspiracy charges, and he was arrested on March 6, his birthday, at a Fort Lauderdale hotel. The case was scheduled to go to trial on Monday, but the ex-Location Ventures CEO faced nearly insurmountable odds at beating the charges.
His attorneys unsuccessfully argued to have him released on bond so that they could mount a proper defense to the federal government’s evidence against him, which consisted of a three-terabyte hard drive or “the equivalent of approximately 20 million pages of documents,” a recent motion states. Kapoor was in federal lock-up following his arrest.
Federal prosecutors also closed in on one of Kapoor’s alleged co-conspirators. A few weeks after Kapoor’s arrest, Location Ventures’ founding partner and ex-CFO Daniel Motha was charged with one count of with a felony conspiracy count for allegedly helping Kapoor conceal and divert more than $1.3 million in payroll taxes owed to the Internal Revenue Service.
At the Friday hearing, a shackled Kapoor, dressed in khaki prison scrubs, sat between two of his lawyers, Jane Raskin and Donald Samuel. He answered “yes” to several questions by Elfenbein about his decision to plead guilty to the two charges and admit to the allegations in Young’s factual proffer. Neither Kapoor’s wife, Jennie Frank Kapoor, nor other relatives attended the proceedings.
When the hearing ended, two agents from the U.S. Marshals Service escorted Kapoor out of the courtroom. A date for his sentencing hearing before U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore has not been set. He faces 10 or more years in prison.