Two South Beach condo association employees were arrested over a kickback scheme that partly hinged on 40-year recertification work for the aging building, according to prosecutors.
Euclid East Condominium’s property manager Francisco Obispo, 38, was charged with one count of organized scheme to defraud and 18 counts of receiving a kickback. A maintenance worker, Jose Luis Hernandez-Aguiar, 52, was charged with one count of organized scheme to defraud.
The six-story, 57-unit building at 1545 Euclid Avenue was built in 1967.
A Miami-Dade State Attorney’s investigator started poking around in June, after a former board member pointed out financial discrepancies, including payments from the association to JLH Repair, a company registered to Hernandez. A review of financial records, including bank records obtained through a subpoena of JLH, showed that the alleged scheme capitalized on Euclid East’s impending 40-year recertification.
Florida and Miami-Dade County tightened its structural integrity and recertification requirements after the 2021 Surfside condo collapse, imposing recertifications at the 30-year mark and every 10 years thereafter. The rules are stricter for buildings near the coast.
The Euclid East association paid JLH $25,000 for permit processing for the recertification, though the city of Miami Beach had no record of JLH pulling permits, according to the arrest warrant. JLH also received $24,500 for pulling recertification electrical permits, but the city had no record of JLH applying for or securing the permits, the warrant says.
Around the time JLH received payments from the association, it cut checks to Obispo and a company registered in his name, Skyline Management Solutions, bank records allegedly showed.
The investigator tracked 18 money transfers, including nearly $200,000 allegedly paid from the association to JLH, with $66,100 of that allegedly transferred to Obispo. Another firm, led by a man who identified himself as the licensed contractor retained by JLH to pull permits for Euclid East, received $61,800 from the association, with $29,400 then transferred to Obispo, according to the warrant.
Obispo told the investigator he received nothing of value from Hernandez.
Euclid East employed Obispo and Hernandez through a condo management company. Hernandez, the maintenance worker, was later switched to a direct employee of the association around the time Obispo, the property manager, was assigned to Euclid East in 2024, the arrest warrant states.
“[We] scratched our head, going where did this come from,” a board member told the investigator, according to the warrant. “Nobody talked to us about it. One minute he’s the janitor, the next thing you know, he’s running $500,000 in construction projects.”
Hernandez’s bond was set at $15,000, and Obispo’s at $105,000. They could not be reached for comment.
The arrests mark the latest incident in a string of alleged fraudulent dealings by condo association staff members. Residents living in communities governed by condo or homeowners associations across South Florida have accused board members of wrongdoing, from diverting funds to themselves to election fraud and bullying of those who spoke out. In some cases, homeowners also accused association managers, which are licensed companies or individuals hired to oversee day-to-day dealings, of partaking in schemes.
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