A judge has placed Florida’s largest Homeowners Association under receivership after past and current board members were arrested for allegedly stealing $2 million in association fees.
On Nov. 17, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Beatrice Butchko called for a receiver to handle the Hammocks operations until board elections are held. She further ordered the members of the Hammocks Home Owners Association (HHOA) to leave the association’s office and the property. Hammocks residents suspected for years that something was wrong as monthly HOA fees rose 400 percent. Following Butchko’s orders, residents cheered and celebrated with a party at the clubhouse.
“I need the hard drives today, seized ... I need those computers ... I am sending a lawyer there right now. I don’t want boxes to leave,” Butchko said, reported
local10, adding, “I need vehicle registrations for every vehicle owned by The Hammocks ... Get a locksmith out there.”
On Nov. 15, five current and former members of the HHOA board were arrested on charges related to the theft of funds from the association. Arrest warrants obtained by The Epoch Times show that Hammocks Community Association (HCA) former president and former treasurer Marglli Gallego (
pdf) faces 18 charges, including racketeering, money laundering, and grand theft. Gallego’s husband, Jose Antonio Gonzalez (
pdf), faces four charges including racketeering and money laundering. Current president Monica Isabel Ghilardi (
pdf) faces seven charges including racketeering and grand theft. Board member Myriam Arango Rodgers (
pdf) faces seven charges, including grand theft and racketeering, and Yoleidis Lopez Garcia (
pdf) faces one charge of grand theft.
As stated in the affidavit in support of the arrest warrant (
pdf) obtained by The Epoch Times, the HCA “is the master association that oversees approximately 40 communities, spanning over approximately 3,800 acres of land. There are 6,527 units, consisting of single dwelling houses as well as apartment buildings and Townhomes. It is the largest homeowner’s association in South Florida and one of the largest in the entire state.”
“Racketeering and money laundering are terms we usually associate with drug cartels and drug transactions, organized crime, or large-scale international bribery schemes,” State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said at the Nov. 19
press conference. “Never would anyone have connected these terms to daily operations of a South Florida Home Owners’ Association. Never would anyone have connected such serious criminal allegations to one of the largest home owners’ associations in Florida. No one would have done that, or thought of that, before today.”
The HOA’s Jan. 3 election is also under legal challenge as the HOA closed the polling location early, preventing some owners from voting by publicly announcing some sort of “threat.” Through its attorney, the HOA board declined to cooperate with law enforcement in their effort to investigate the nature of the purported “threat” or to aid in identifying the alleged perpetrators. Subsequently, the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation found that the board’s election violated its own HOA by-laws and mandated a new election.
