Article Courtesy of WINK
NEWS
By
Michelle Alvarez
Published March 8, 2024
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“To the best of our knowledge and belief, it started in about 2018 and continued
all the way through the end of 2021,” said Jason Hamilton Mikes from Hamilton
Mikes Law Firm.
The money belonged to more than two dozen homeowners and
condominium associations in Southwest Florida.
“Among the 30 or so that we represented, they lost over $10
million to this company. So, you can imagine the significant
impact negative impact that that had on those communities,”
added Mikes.
The claims were the foundation of a lawsuit filed against
American Property Management Services, and now the owners
have been indicted by a federal grand jury. Mikes is the
lawyer who filed the lawsuit.
“We were able to recover about 1.3 million remaining in
their bank accounts, for some were able to recover funds
from their insurance carriers, but not everybody had
sufficient insurance or any insurance at all. So, there’s
still significant sums that were lost and might never be
recovered unless the federal government is able to do
something about that,” he said.
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Millions of dollars are gone after a property
management company closed its doors in Collier County.
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The owners, Orlando Miserandino Ortiz and his wife Linda Munoz Posada, who were
in charge of billing and collections, are not in custody.
“There was a lot of confusion and betrayal,” said Mikes. “It’s our understanding
that the owners of American Property Management left the country during the
COVID lockdown. And they did have employees sort of running the company in their
absence, but we don’t believe those employees knew anything about the fraud
being perpetrated. So, it was about the time of the raid that all of this came
to light. And, of course, the company collapsed,” he added.
He said communities should make sure they’re checking their bank balances
directly with the bank. Don’t rely on your manager to tell you how much money
you have in your bank, and if you find any suspicious transactions, ask
questions.
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