Rishi Kapoor is a long way away from the days when he wore snazzy suits, drove around town in a McLaren, hosted soirees on his yacht and dazzled investors with his vision for developing luxury condos and co-living mixed-use projects across South Florida.
Since his real estate development career imploded three years ago, Kapoor was unemployed, residing in Atlanta caring for his sick father while occasionally traveling to Fort Lauderdale with his wife, Jennie Frank Kapoor, who has become the couple’s primary breadwinner as a real estate agent handling a few listings in Broward County, according to court records.
And it’s only gotten worse for Kapoor, who was arrested on his birthday, March 6, and has been held in federal custody at a downtown Miami jail since then. A grand jury indictment charged him with 37 criminal counts, including wire and bank fraud, money laundering, tax evasion and failure to report and remit employee payroll taxes. If convicted, he is facing more than 20 years in prison.
Last week, Kapoor appeared before a judge in khaki scrubs, his hands shackled to a chain around his waist. The judge denied his request to be released on bond, after prosecutors accused him of being a flight risk.
Kapoor’s stunning fall from up-and-coming South Florida developer to federal inmate accused of swindling $85 million from investors for failed real estate projects is laid bare in recent motions and court affidavits in the criminal case against the 42-year-old developer.
Meanwhile, Kapoor’s Coral Gables-based Location Ventures is out of business as a court-appointed receiver has been tasked with selling all of its unfinished development sites to satisfy creditors and investors in a separate pending federal civil lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
His wife Jennie became a licensed real estate agent with the Engel & Völkers Fort Lauderdale office “as a result of needing to support myself and my husband after the loss of his job/company,” she wrote in an April 8 court affidavit. She had three active listings as of May 1 and is seeking new clients in Broward County.
“As real estate in Georgia provided more value, we decided to rent a home in John’s Creek, Georgia, where we could stay and keep our personal items,” she wrote. “We also have a long-term stay apartment in Fort Lauderdale that is centrally located to my current active listing and my brokerage office. It was our intention to try this split living/working for a year.”
His wife submitted the affidavit in the hopes it can help convince U.S. District Court Judge K. Michael Moore, who is presiding over the case, to reconsider releasing her husband until his trial date so he can properly prepare his defense.
An April 9 motion states that prosecutors provided Kapoor’s lawyers with a 3-terabyte hard drive of discovery evidence “which is the equivalent of approximately 20 million pages of documents.”
Possible key witnesses
Kapoor’s lawyers Fred Schwartz and Donald Samuel declined to comment about the discovery evidence, including who in Kapoor’s orbit provided sworn statements to investigators. But documents in the SEC case, as well as other civil lawsuits against Kapoor, Location Ventures and company affiliates, shed some light on who spoke to federal agents and who could testify against him.
For instance, Greg Brooks is a former Location Ventures CFO who was the first to blow the whistle on Kapoor’s alleged misdeeds. Brooks sued Kapoor and Location Ventures in 2023 for failing to pay him bonuses. Kapoor allegedly fired Brooks after the former CFO became aware of financial improprieties taking place at Location Ventures and refused to participate in them.
Kapoor allegedly collected more than $3 million in unauthorized fees that violated operating agreements for the company’s development projects, the lawsuit states. Kapoor, through a Location Ventures affiliate, also paid then-Miami Mayor Francis Suarez a $10,000 monthly consulting fee without a contract outlining the mayor’s duties.
Brooks questioned the payments to Suarez, along with other alleged expenditures, such as Kapoor’s McLaren, the lawsuit states. Brooks settled the case with Kapoor and Location Ventures, but the ex-CFO spoke with federal regulators and investigators about Kapoor’s alleged misconduct.
Brooks gave sworn testimony in a separate lawsuit filed by investors of a Location Ventures Coconut Grove project, acknowledging that he had been contacted by the SEC, IRS and FBI.
Daniel Motha, a college friend of Kapoor’s who helped launch Location Ventures in 2016, is another former Location Ventures CFO who could provide detailed accounts of Kapoor’s dealings. He is not named as a defendant in the SEC’s civil complaint, but the agency’s lawsuit alleges Motha aided Kapoor in an alleged scheme to defraud investors.
According to the SEC’s allegations, Motha and Kapoor raised about $93 million from more than 50 investors while portraying Location Ventures and its related entities as separate, legitimate investments backed by real capital. Regulators say that pitch was false, that investor money was shuffled among companies and accounts, and that Motha himself received about $1 million in unsupported transfers.
Federal investigators likely also obtained sworn statements from Alex Kleyner and Diane Ulis, Location Ventures’ biggest investors. The Miami Beach-based couple invested $45 million into Location Ventures and two planned projects before they began uncovering what they believed were unauthorized fees, shifting project budgets and other signs that investor money was being handled outside the approved framework, court records show.
Kleyner provided sworn testimony to SEC lawyers, recounting how Kapoor wooed him and his wife. He said their business relationship fell apart when Kapoor refused to implement oversight reforms at Location Ventures. In his account provided to the SEC, Kleyner described Kapoor as the final decision-maker inside a company where few people questioned him.
No public corruption charges
The indictment against Kapoor makes no mention of his questionable dealings with local elected officials, including the consulting deal with Suarez, who left office last year after being termed out. Suarez’s net worth grew to approximately $5 million while he was in office. He had a net worth of roughly $400,000 when he was elected mayor in 2017, records show.
Suarez provided sworn testimony to the SEC in 2024 about his gig with Location Ventures’ affiliate Urbin, explaining his duties involved recruiting potential investors for projects outside of Miami-Dade County. The then-mayor said under oath that Kapoor also promised him commissions for landing investors and an eventual equity stake in Urbin. Suarez ultimately did not receive commissions or an equity stake because he never secured investors.
Both Suarez and Kapoor denied any wrongdoing and said that they never discussed any matters involving Location Ventures and Urbin that required city of Miami involvement. Yet, city records show that Kapoor sought assistance from the mayor with obtaining permits for a Coconut Grove project.
Kapoor also cemented a business relationship with Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago. Kapoor’s firm leased a storefront from a building partly owned by Lago. Lago’s brokerage also collected a large commission tied to a separate Kapoor deal in Coral Gables. Lago recused himself from commission votes involving Kapoor’s projects, but he met privately with Kapoor and the city manager to help move a co-living deal forward.The brokerage payment is especially significant. In 2022, Location Ventures bought a Coral Gables development site for $35.5 million that netted a $640,000 commission for La Rosa Commercial Real Estate. While Lago was not the broker on the deal, he was one of five real estate agents whose licenses were registered with La Rosa at the time.
