Forgeries alleged in tax office

Scam diverted cash from property sales

At least three companies are accused of filing forged documents with Broward County’s tax office to obtain hundreds of thousands of dollars owed to people whose property had been auctioned off to pay debt.

One document was purportedly signed by a condo owner who had been dead for four years. The county accepted all of the documents without detecting them as fakes, according to lawsuits and police reports.

One lawsuit alleges that a tax office employee was involved. Among the allegations: • Two lawsuits filed last year charge that Nu Concepts Investments LLC of North Miami, CSC Equity of Miami Beach, and Marc Eugene, 34, of North Miami, filed forged documents to obtain $145,000 owed to property owners in Miramar. Eugene represented both companies.

• A condominium owner in Pembroke Pines filed a police report saying he lost nearly $40,000 and claimed Nu Concepts Investments filed a forged document in his name.

• A woman in Miami-Dade County is awaiting trial on charges that she collected $161,686 from a tax deed sale for a Pembroke Pines property after submitting a forged power of attorney form on behalf of her and her company, Concrete Capital LLC.

• A judge in February ordered the county to pay nearly $80,000 to the heirs of a Hallandale Beach property owner who had died four years before a document was signed with her name and used to collect money from the auction of her property.

In all of the cases, the properties were sold involuntarily at auction because their owners owed taxes on them. Proceeds from the auction, called a tax deed sale, are used to pay the delinquent taxes and accrued interest, then any govern-

mental liens, mortgages or other debts. The former owner is entitled to whatever amount remains.

Sometimes, a former owner will sign an agreement with a company or individual to act on their behalf to get the money. The power of attorney document gives the company the right to file for and collect the remaining funds.

Power of attorney forms were used in 96 of the more than 1,500 surplus distributions the tax office authorized since the beginning of 2011, according to county records.

It is not clear how much money the tax office paid out to companies that filed phony documents. The office investigated the issue last year and turned over its findings to prosecutors, director Tom Kennedy said. Officials with the state attorney and sheriff ’s offices confirmed that they are investigating but said they would not comment on the scope or focus of the investigation.

Miramar lawsuits

The two lawsuits filed last year charge that the tax office accepted forged power of attorney documents on two properties in Miramar: a St. Andrews condo and a house on Gulfstream Drive.

The suits involve payments of $83,306 to CSC Equity and $62,211 to Nu Concepts Investments. Eugene, the listed representative for both companies, could not be reached for comment.

CSC Equity and Nu Concepts Investments collected a total of $734,397 between May 2015 and May 2016 for surplus distributions from tax deed sales involving 15 properties, records show.

Global Discoveries, the company that filed suit, had received power of attorney to act on behalf of the former property owners, only to see the payments go to Eugene’s companies, according to documentation filed with the suits.

Attorneys for Global Discoveries said they weren’t authorized to comment on the cases and did not know how many other payments might have been affected.

“That’s what we’re investigating. We don’t have a good handle on it ourselves yet,” attorney Jonathan D. Kaplan said.

Global Discoveries claims that Nu Concepts Investments had help inside the tax office. The Gulfstream Drive lawsuit accuses a tax office employee, Roberto Martinez, 46, of working with Eugene. The suit claims Martinez “used his official position with the division to carry out this conspiracy and wrongfully pay the funds” to someone who wasn’t entitled to them.

Martinez has worked for the county since 2006 and in recent years handled surplus tax deed distributions.

The former property owner, Edmunda Castellon, filed an affidavit saying Martinez called her in May 2015 and encouraged her to switch from Global Discoveries to another company run by “Mark,” who also contacted her.

Castellon quoted Martinez as saying: “I am the only one who approves and denies claims. It has to come across my desk. So if you want to get your claim paid, talk to my friend. I highly suggest it.” Castellon stayed with Global Discoveries.

Kennedy, the tax office director, said Martinez has been reassigned to the division’s local business tax group while the investigations continue. Martinez, who earns $42,249 annually, said he had no comment about the allegations.

The tax office has changed its procedures as a result of its investigation, Kennedy said. He would not discuss details because of the criminal investigations.

Pembroke Pines properties

Miguel Grillo’s condominium in Reflections at Pembroke Pines was auctioned in 2012 because he didn’t keep up with his property taxes. He said he never signed a document giving control to a company.

Grillo said he filed a police report when he found out the tax office had paid nearly $40,000 owed him to Nu Concepts Investments, which had filed a claim in his name. He said the signature on the power of attorney document was not his.

“I was trying to get the money and I couldn’t get it for two years,” Grillo said. Nu Concepts Investments received the check within weeks of filing paperwork in 2015, he said.

In Miami-Dade County, Patricia Eugene, 36, is charged with grand theft, accused of forging a power of attorney in 2015 to collect $161,686 from a tax deed sale for a condo at Encino at Grand Palms in Pembroke Pines. She has pleaded not guilty.

Overall, her company, Concrete Capital LLC, received $217,350 from Broward’s tax office for surplus distributions involving three Broward properties. Concrete Capital used the same mailing address as Nu Concepts Investments. Patricia Eugene’s relationship, if any, to Marc Eugene is unclear.

Fort Lauderdale attorney David Joffe, who is Patricia Eugene’s attorney in her Miami-Dade criminal case, said he expects to resolve the case without going to trial. He wouldn’t comment further and would not allow his client to talk about the case.

The trial is being held in Miami-Dade because the check was cashed there.

Dead woman’s signature

In February, Broward Circuit Court Judge Michael Gates ordered the county to pay the heirs of Eladia Lugo the $73,876 left over from the auction of her condo in Imperial Towers North, plus $5,495 to cover interest and other costs.

The county had paid the money to Gawens St. Victor, 38, who submitted a power of attorney form supposedly signed by Lugo. The notarized document said Lugo signed it May 30, 2014 – though she had died Sept. 2, 2010. St. Victor has not been charged with a crime.

In all, St. Victor and two of his companies, Givanna Consulting LLC and Bridge Connect Solution Inv., have received $387,645 in surplus distributions related to five tax deed sales, county records show.

The total paid out to companies involving Mark Eugene, Patricia Eugene or St. Victor exceed $1.3 million.

In an affidavit in the Lugo case, the county’s tax office suggested it wasn’t responsible for ensuring that power of attorney forms are legitimate.

Tax office senior manager Claudio Manicone said in the affidavit that the county “is not obligated to authenticate, attest to, or guarantee the validity of a claim for surplus funds submitted by a duly executed power of attorney on behalf of a claimant.”

Broward Mayor Barbara Sharief said she was briefed on the tax office investigation this year.

“We have been evaluating everything that was done within the records [tax] division and taking appropriate action,” Sharief said.

The Lugo suit criticized the tax office for holding onto unclaimed funds too long after a tax auction is held.

Funds remaining for more than a year are to be turned over to the state as unclaimed property. But of the 96 payments involving power of attorney forms in Broward County, only four were completed within a year of the tax deed sale.

“If the funds had been paid to the state, then the [county] would not have been able to pay the funds to the impostor,” according to a motion filed in the case.

In the Castellon case, documents show the tax office rejected Global Discoveries’ claim, saying it filed too late, more than a year after the tax deed sale. Other documents show the office had already distributed the money weeks earlier to Nu Concepts Investments, which also filed its claim more than a year after the auction.

County Administrator Bertha Henry said delays with forwarding money to the state as unclaimed property might have been caused by the crush of documents following the Great Recession, when the number of people defaulting on mortgages and taxes ballooned.

“Every clerk in this state after the downturn in the economy was backed up with lots and lots of documents,” Henry said. “It took a while for everything to get caught up.”