A former manager for a Brickell condo tower was charged with allegedly diverting more than $142,000 from the association.
Yissely Herrouet hired “phantom employees,” who in reality were her family members and acquaintances, and paid them with funds from The Club at Brickell Bay association, according to an arrest warrant filed by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. The 43-story tower at 1200 Brickell Bay Drive has 643 units and was completed in 2004, property records show.
Herrouet, 37, is charged with one felony count each of grand theft, organized scheme to defraud, offenses against computer users and false entries in books of a business entity.
She could not be reached for comment.
From 2020 to 2022, Herrouet, who is a Florida licensed community association manager, was an employee of FirstService Residential and was assigned to Club at Brickell Bay, according to the arrest warrant.
“Herrouet’s position and specialized knowledge allowed her to hire individuals who did no work, falsify payroll records and generate timesheets to facilitate these payments,” the warrant says.
She “manipulated and forged” payrolls to hire five people as supposed association employees who did no work on the property, the arrest warrant says. Herrouet used her access to software FirstService used for workforce management to process the fake employees’ payrolls, and she also fabricated “handwritten timesheets on their behalf,” according to the warrant.
During her tenure, Herrouet also retained Sunshine Cleaning Services as Club as Brickell Bay’s janitorial services provider for $29,991 monthly. It was later discovered the firm is owned by Herrouet’s mother, according to the warrant.
The scheme started to unravel after unit owners and legitimate FirstService employees complained to FirstService that Herrouet may have been misappropriating funds. FirstService and its attorney did an internal records review and audit, and then alerted the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.
According to the warrant, legitimate FirstService staff members who worked at Club at Brickell told an investigator that two of the five people Herrouet hired were her cousin and aunt. FirstService staff members also recognized another two of Herrouet’s hires as employees for Sunshine Cleaning, meaning they were paid double from the association as employees of the cleaning company and as Herrouet’s hires, the warrant says. FirstService staff members who spoke with the investigator didn’t recognize the fifth person Herrouet hired as an employee for FirstService or Club at Brickell Bay.
The allegations are similar to those at the Hammocks, South Florida’s largest homeowners association that in recent years hosted an allegedly massive HOA fraud scheme. In 2022, police arrested a former board president and her husband and three other ex-board members on allegations they siphoned more than $1 million from the association.
At the Hammocks, the former board members allegedly hired bogus contractors who did little to no work on the West Kendall property and then paid them with association funds, investigators with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office said in legal filings. To execute the alleged scheme, the board members leaned on their family members, some of whom owned the fake vendors hired by the HOA.
Two of the former Hammocks board members pleaded guilty and are cooperating with investigators. The remaining three people who were charged have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial.
Across South Florida, residents living in communities governed by associations have raised issues with their board members, and in some cases with managers and attorneys hired by board members to serve associations. Residents have levied various allegations, including diversion of funds, withholding of financial records and retaliation against those who speak out.
In 2023, police arrested Ben Dvir, former president of the Blue condo tower at 601 Northeast 36th Street in Miami’s Edgewater, on allegations he instructed a tile vendor to inflate invoices and kept the markup for himself, according to an arrest affidavit. Court records show adjudication of guilt for Dvir was withheld, and he was placed on probation. A judge also ordered Dvir to pay nearly $33,000 in restitution, which equates to the amount he allegedly siphoned for himself through the scheme.
