A lender is accusing a Marlon Gomez joint venture of engaging in fraud to obtain a $10 million loan.
An affiliate of Coral Gables-based The Fiorentino Family Office filed a foreclosure complaint last week Gomez, who leads Miami-based Gomez Development, two of his entities, Coral Gables-based Gumbo Limbo Holdings and its principals Fausto Callava and Antonio Pardo, according to Miami-Dade court records and real estate database Vizzda. Callava and Pardo also lead Coral Gables-based development firm Avenue 4 Partners, which is not a party to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges the Gomez-led entity that owns a 1.8-acre Miami River assemblage at 1515, 1529 and 1543 Northwest South River Drive defaulted on the $10 million loan that matured last month. The partnership allegedly hasn’t made any monthly payments, the complaint states.
The site, which comes with approved plans for a 40-townhome development called Miami River Cove, has been on the market for nearly a year with an asking price of $25 million. Arthur Porosoff with Porosoff Group has the listing.
The Coral Gables-based lender, led by Jeffrey Fiorentino, is also accusing the joint venture of falsely representing its ability to repay the promissory note because Gomez allegedly provided “a fraudulent financial statement and concealed the fact that the [he] was already in default of a separate loan agreement” secured by an unrelated development site in Aventura.
The lender has ties to a convicted ex-Miami tech executive. Fiorentino’s father, Carl Fiorentino, served nearly six years in prison on 2014 felony conspiracy charges for his leading role in a kickback scheme when he led the Miami outpost of defunct computer distributor TigerDirect, court records show.
Mathew Leto, a lawyer for Fiorentino’s entity, did not respond to requests for comment.
“The lawsuits filed against us are entirely without merit and appear to be a calculated attempt to misuse the legal system for financial and strategic advantage,” Gomez said in an emailed statement. “We categorically reject these claims and will aggressively defend against any and all misrepresentations of the facts.”
The lawsuit is also exposing a rift between Gomez and his Avenue 4 partners. Callava and Pardo were unaware of “Mr. Gomez’s extraneous ventures” and are “taking the necessary steps to secure competent management” for the Miami River Cove site, said attorney Ramsey Villalon in a statement.
Villalon, who represents Gumbo Limbo, said that the lender’s accusations against his clients “are meritless.”
“Gumbo Limbo and its principals vehemently deny any wrongdoing and will defend against the accusations levied against them,” Villalon said. “Gumbo Limbo has full faith and confidence in the prospects of the 1515 Miami River development project and remains dedicated to its success.”
The partnership squabble runs even deeper because court records show that Gumbo Limbo also recently sued Gomez’s entity that owns a stake in Miami River Cove.
In his statement, Gomez alleged Fiorentino’s family office and Gumbo Limbo’s principals “engaged in conduct that materially interfered with our project.”
“We have substantial reason to believe that critical information necessary for the project’s success was withheld, creating avoidable delays and complications,” Gomez said. “Additionally, filings and communications in this matter raise significant concerns about undisclosed dealings that placed our project at a disadvantage.”
The lender exerted “improper pressure” on Gomez to “force an outcome that would have unjustly benefitted” Fiorentino’s family office, causing “measurable financial harm to our project and ourselves,” Gomez said in his email.
In the complaint, the Fiorentino entity alleges that Gomez, as the loan’s personal guarantor, provided a financial statement that contained allegedly false information that he was current on a $15 million commercial loan secured by an Aventura site Gomez planned to develop into a medical office building.
In actuality, Gomez had received a notice of default on the Aventura project loan when he and his partners closed on the Fiorentino promissory note in February of last year, the lawsuit alleges. A month later, the Aventura project’s lender, the mortgage arm of the Rok family, filed a foreclosure complaint against the Gomez Development entity that owned that site.
Last month, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Abby Cynamon granted final judgment of $19 million, including interest and attorney fees, in favor of the Rok family’s entity, court records show.
“Had the lender known of the Notice of Default or Gomez’s actual financial position, it would not have moved forward with the transaction,” the Fiorentino lawsuit states “The plain language of the loan documents required the borrower to disclose the filing of [the Aventura foreclosure] lawsuit. However, that did not occur and the lawsuit was also concealed from the lender.”
Gomez denied any wrongdoing in his statement. “We remain resolute in protecting our reputation and legal rights,” Gomez said. “Our track record speaks for itself — we have consistently met our obligations to lenders and investors in our projects.”