On the afternoon of April 12, 2025, a crew of tree service workers entered the backyard of Stefan Pizzi’s duplex in Miami’s Buena Vista West neighborhood. Within minutes, they chopped down a 100-year-old oak straddling the property line with an adjacent vacant lot, home surveillance video shows. The destruction of the 45-foot-tall tree with a canopy spanning more than 50 feet jolted Pizzi and Adriana Ocampo, his girlfriend and co-property owner.
It was the beginning of a fight that resulted in a lawsuit and allegations of forgery against the developer, JF Property Holdings.
Pizzi and Ocampo, who purchased their three-bedroom property in 2023 for $655,000, considered the oak an essential amenity, and did not authorize its removal, Pizzi told The Real Deal.
“They left a gaping hole in our fence,” Pizzi said. “They removed all the natural shade that was here.”
Workers ripped out another four dozen smaller trees along the property line between Pizzi’s house at 220 Northwest 47th Street and the vacant lot at 226 Northwest 47th Street where JF Property has since nearly completed a two-story cube home that is headed to the market.
A few days after the oak massacre, Pizzi said he spoke briefly to Albert Serra and William Rios, two principals of JF Property who have built dozens of spec homes across Miami, records show. Rios told him they had a tree removal permit, prompting Pizzi and Ocampo to seek copies via public records.
They were shocked by what they found: A notarized document JF Property submitted to the city for the tree removal permit that Pizzi says were approved with forged signatures. (Pizzi showed TRD his and Ocampos’ passports to compare to the signatures on the documents.) The allegedly forged letter of intent includes signatures belonging to other people who signed the transfer deed for his duplex in 2023.
“I had never seen or heard of anything like that,” he said.
Pizzi and Ocampo embarked on a mission to hold those they believe responsible for the alleged forgeries and alleged trespassing to cut down the trees.
In October, they sued JF Property, Rios, general contractor Ricardo Cabrera and his company RC Construction and Investments and Jorge Rousseau, who notarized the letter of consent. Pizzi and Ocampo are seeking $1.5 million in damages.
The tree removal unleashed termites on the duplex, forcing them to tent the house, Pizzi said. The absence of the Oak’s tree canopy exposed the home to more direct sunlight, which made it hotter.
“It gets past 90 degrees in the house,” Pizzi said. “The air conditioning broke and we had to get it fixed.”
Pizzi also got the police involved. In April, he filed a criminal complaint against JF Property’s principals, providing investigators with videos, photos and documents, including a copy of a deed he believes was used in the alleged forgery.
The Miami Police Department is investigating the alleged forgery, according to emails Pizzi showed TRD. A city of Miami spokesperson declined comment.
Rios and Serra did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A third partner, Yerucham Winer, told TRD that he exited the partnership before construction of the cube home began.
Miami-based lawyer Jason Giller, who along with Hialeah Mayor Bryan Calvo, represents Rios and JF Property Holdings, dismissed Pizzi’s claims as “bogus.”
“The relief demanded is outrageous,” Giller said. “And the defendants look forward to their day in court.”
More than 100 Miami home sites are linked to Rios or his partners, Pizzi said.
LVR Investments, an entity managed by Rios and his wife, Lisset Vazquez-Rios, owns 48 residential properties and lots in Miami, records show.
An entity managed by Rios sold a renovated three-bedroom home in Buena Vista for $660,000 in 2016, records show. Four years later, a Rios entity built and sold a Buena Vista two-story house with four bedrooms for $1.4 million. Last year, a Rios-led group completed a two-story cube home with four bedrooms in Buena Vista that sold for $2.6 million in December. And in March, Rios sold a renovated four-bedroom home in Buena Vista for $830,000.
Pizzi’s tree removal caper is happening against the backdrop of an ongoing conflict between developers and residents, preservationists and conservationists across Miami who claim city officials allow builders to run roughshod over the tree removal permitting process.
The city has 172 tree permit applications in the pipeline and 14 active appeals of approved permits, according to Miami Canopy Watch, a website set up by local environmentalists to track trees that are in danger.
In June, Lima, Peru-based Grupo T&C, led by William Ticona, withdrew an application to cut down four mahogany trees at the firm’s Edge House condo project site in Miami’s Edgewater, WFOR reported.
A month later, residents and preservationists packed the Miami Historic Preservation and Environmental Board meeting to voice their opposition to the removal of 47 trees at a development site in the city’s Upper East Side where Acre is planning Adela II, a 337-unit apartment complex.
The fight is intensifying even after the Miami City Commission voted in May to establish a 10-member advisory committee to recommend an overhaul of the city’s tree ordinance.
“Once the harm is done, there is little that can be done,” Andy Parrish, a Coconut Grove commercial property owner who sits on the advisory committee, told TRD. “And the city doesn’t show any degree of interest or concern before the harm is done.”
Pizzi’s case is indicative of the inaction by city bureaucrats and elected officials, Parrish said.
“If Miami was serious about treating this like an emergency, no tree permits would be issued, and fines would be doubled until a new ordinance is enacted,” Parrish said. “That is not going to happen. Developers are in charge of everything.”
On Feb. 12, Pizzi met with Augusto Carvajal, an environmental resources consultant employed by Miami’s building department, to make his case against JF Property.
“I came prepared with three manila folders with printed evidence,” Pizzi said. “He just took notes of what I was telling him. He said he would look into this. That was the last thing I heard.”
Nearly three months later, about a year after the 100-year-old oak had been cut down, Pizzi marched over to the Miami Police Department’s financial crimes division and filed a three-page complaint.
Pizzi told the police he had a brief conversation with Rios a few days after the tree removal, according to the complaint. The developer allegedly told Pizzi that he had obtained a permit and had attempted to contact him prior to destroying the Oak. Rios allegedly offered to make it right by planting new trees on Pizzi’s property.
“Ultimately, we are just looking to find a resolution satisfactory for all parties,” Rios allegedly wrote, according to a screenshot of texts included in the criminal complaint.
Pizzi’s complaint to the police included tree removal letters related to other projects by Rios and his partners. Pizzi alleged those letters were also forged.
One letter, dated Dec. 11, 2024, is purportedly signed by Thomas Flanagan, manager of an entity that owns a three-bedroom house at 234 Northwest 47th Street, which is adjacent to JF Property’s project at 226 Northwest 47th Street. In the letter, Flanagan gave his consent to cut down a Brazilian pepper tree along the property line.
Flanagan’s son, Cristobal Flanagan, lives nearby. In a phone interview, he told The Real Deal that he didn’t know about the letter until Pizzi recently came by his home and showed him a copy of the document.
“I can definitely say my father did not sign that letter,” Cristobal Flanagan said. “He wasn’t here on that date. He wasn’t in the United States. My father lives in Chile.”
Meanwhile, Pizzi’s civil case recently suffered a setback.
On July 27, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Daryl Trawick dismissed a fraud and forgery count in Pizzi’s lawsuit on a technicality. The judge sided with Rios and JF Property, ruling that Pizzi and Ocampo did not have standing because the alleged fraud was committed against the city of Miami, not them. The judge allowed counts for trespassing and conversion to proceed.
