A Hialeah condo association’s property manager and a contractor ran a kickback scheme that hinged on inflated repair contracts, ultimately siphoning nearly $200,000 from unit owners, according to arrest warrants.
Carlos Jose Mejia, who worked as a property manager at the Venetian Gardens at Country Club of Miami complex, faces one count of organized scheme to defraud for over $50,000, and 10 counts of receiving a kickback. Richard Thomas Murray, the contractor who provided services through his AP Construction Solutions, faces one count of organized scheme to defraud for over $50,000. Both were arrested on Thursday morning.
Mejia, a 51-year-old Hialeah resident, and Murray, 62 of Boca Raton, couldn’t be reached for comment.
From 2024 to 2025, the pair executed contracts for jacked-up prices and after the association disbursed the funds to Murray’s AP Construction, he cut out kickbacks to Mejia and characterized these payments as loans, according to the arrest warrants.
In total, Murray’s US Murray Holdings lending entity issued $186,445 through 10 checks, with Venetian Gardens unit owners ultimately bearing the excess financial burden, the warrants say.
Venetian Gardens, at 18001 Northwest 68th Avenue, has 288 units in 21 two-story and three-story buildings.
The charges come on the heels of numerous arrests in recent years over alleged condo association fraud schemes.
Six people were arrested late last month in what investigators say was a massive, yearslong $5.8 million fraud scheme at at least five condo associations, many of them in the Hialeah area. Among those arrested was Juan Jose Awais, who was the property manager at most of the targeted communities and is portrayed as the ringleader by investigators. That alleged ploy in part relied on residents’ limited English, and it diverted insurance and loan funds to affiliates of those arrested, while also paying the legitimate roof and window contractors, according to the warrant.
Accepting kickbacks, criminalized in 2024 when Florida lawmakers beefed up laws governing associations, is often involved in these types of cases.
The state strengthened its legal oversight in response to the $11 million fraud at the Hammocks HOA, considered one of the largest fraud schemes in Florida’s recent history. The Hammocks is the second biggest HOA in the state and South Florida’s largest.
What happened at Venetian Gardens?
Things started to unravel in the summer of last year, when John Joseph Kenney, of MJK Services, filed a complaint to authorities, saying that he introduced Mejia to Murray. But then Kenney was removed as an intermediary and cut out from commissions he was entitled to for his role, he told an investigator.
As Kenney asked why he was cut out, he got ahold of records suggesting Murray was paying Mejia kickbacks, according to the warrant.
In subpoenas for US Murray’s banking records, an investigator found multiple checks issued from the lending entity to Mejia, ranging from $2,000 to $100,000 in 2024, the warrants say. Subsequently, the investigator found financial records showing Mejia withdrew cash and applied funds to credit card bills or purchased a cashier’s check.
Vicky Jazmin Montes-Castro, an employee at Murray’s AP Construction, told investigators that Mejia and Maria Barrios — listed as president of GRS — “would receive a certain percentage of the overall contract amounts,” according to the warrants.
“Montes-Castro also acknowledged that the contract amounts were inflated to account for the alleged kickback payments made to” Mejia and Barrios, the investigator wrote in the warrant.
Montes-Castro told authorities Murray would write off the debt as bad loans, and that a repair project at Venetian Gardens was paused due to insufficient funds. She partly attributed the shortage to “Mejia receiving a portion of the funds associated with each change order,” the warrants say.
Barrios didn’t respond to a request for comment sent to her GRS email.
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