The case against defendant Johanna Michely Garcia, the CEO of MJ Capital and several other entities, has crossed its last major hurdle before sentencing. The issue that had to be settled before sentencing: the amount the court would order her to be responsible for due to her wire and mail fraud crimes, which she pleaded guilty to on July 16th, 2024.
The prosecutors and defense attorneys had to analyze thousands of transactions spread out over multiple bank accounts belonging to multiple entities and even over $1 million in cash transactions made in person at their offices in Pompano Beach, Florida. Last week, on Nov 4th, a court filing shows Judge Jose Martinez ordered a forfeiture judgment of a staggering $186,312,000.
This amount was the total proceeds from investors including the $1.379 million in cash collected by the Receiver from the premises of MJ Capital.
The total that has been collected by the Receiver is not mentioned in this most recent court document.
The short summary of what Johanna and her accomplices did was solicit investors for money which they would use to fund MCAs between June 2020 and August 2021. However, they only did a few MCA transactions and used much of the money for personal uses. Eventually, they were raising money just to pay back investors with new investor money, a classic Ponzi scheme. Once complaints were lodged from investors who weren't getting paid back, the SEC caught up to them.
The government has asked for a continuance in the sentencing currently set for Nov 15th to Nov 22nd. On that date, I will be in the courtroom in Miami to bring you coverage of the sentencing decision on Johanna Michely Garcia.
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