Ex-Miami Beach realtor Kevin Tomlinson is in jail after violating his probation, The Real Deal has learned.
Tomlinson was convicted by a jury in June on two counts of extortion against The Jills, a top-producing Coldwell Banker broker duo in Miami Beach, for his demand that Jill Eber and Jill Hertzberg pay $800,000 in exchange for his silence about their manipulations of the Multiple Listing Service. He was sentenced in August to two years of community control – probation with an ankle monitor – and another 15 years of probation.
He was also banned from working in the real estate industry, from contacting Hertzberg and Eber, and from blogging or writing about them on social media. He is appealing the guilty verdict.
Tomlinson violated his probation in November, according to a violation of community control affidavit obtained by TRD. In addition to leaving his Miami Beach apartment on West Avenue on Nov. 25 without approval from his probation officer, he sent direct or indirect messages on Facebook to Eber and Hertzberg as of Dec. 1, Broward State Attorney Al Guttman told his probation officer.
Tomlinson’s probation officer, Amancia Irizarry, said in the report that since Tomlinson was placed on supervision with electronic monitoring, he triggered 26 alarms as of Dec. 4. He also failed to pay about $518 toward the cost of supervision, which breaks down to about $104 a month, plus a 4 percent surcharge, the affidavit states.
He reportedly told his probation officer that he left his home without approval because “he was hungry and had nothing to eat at his house” on the Sunday after Thanksgiving and said to “write him up.”
Miami State Attorney spokesperson Lorna Salomon said the case is being prosecuted by the Broward State Attorney’s Office “due to a possible conflict of interest.” State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle has been photographed with Hertzberg at community events. The Broward office could not immediately be reached for comment.
Tomlinson is currently being held without bond at Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami.
Tomlinson attempted to extort Hertzberg and Eber after uncovering that they were manipulating their listings on the MLS. In a complaint filed with the Miami Association of Realtors in 2015, Tomlinson detailed 51 listings that the Jills had altered a total of 552 times between 2011 and 2015, erasing nearly 23,740 days on the market from those listings. Tomlinson said the combined values of those properties totaled more than $372 million.
At Tomlinson’s trial in June, The Jills blamed an employee, saying they weren’t aware of what was happening. But the duo has faced some fallout since then. In September, sources said they were removed from the Master Brokers Forum, a well-respected industry trade group in South Florida, although Hertzberg disputed the removal and said through a spokesperson that she “recently decided to resign.”