While on trial in Miami for one scam, cops say, a couple fleeced desperate home hunters

In the Miami courthouse this month, Vivian Rodriguez and Yovany Serna went to trial, accused of fleecing a family of nearly $1.8 million in investments in a sham house-flipping company in 2017. The pair used the money lavishly, traveling to Europe, embarking on cruises and gambling at local casinos.

But even while they were defending themselves in one scam, police say, the married couple was preying on others — renting the same Hialeah efficiency, at the same time, to at least eight different people desperate for housing.

Neither scam worked.

On Dec. 10, Miami jurors deliberated about two hours in convicting Rodriguez and Serna, whose bond was immediately revoked while they await sentencing for the investment scheme. Eleven days later, Hialeah police detectives visited the jail to charge them with stealing deposits from the desperate home hunters.

The story of Rodriguez and Serna is peak Miami — a tale of real-estate scams, naked greed and the abuse of the downtrodden.

One of the victims, a 39-year-old woman had just arrived from Cuba, and borrowed $1,000 from friends and family for what she believed was a deposit on the Hialeah efficiency. She desperately needed a place to stay and felt comforted because Rodriguez was also Cuban.

“It was really difficult. I’m alone here and it was very traumatic,” said the woman, who asked her name not be used. “We come from the same country. I feel used.”

Rodriguez, 53 had lived in the United States for years, and earned her real-estate license in 2006, state record show. She’d been working through Trex International Realty. Years ago, she met a Hialeah Gardens family through a home listing they’d called about.

Flipping homes .... or not

She later approached the Hialeah Gardens husband and his wife with an investment opportunity.

The offer: Help finance a home-flipping business in South Florida’s ever-lucrative real estate market. Rodriguez would broker the purchase of fixer-upper homes. Her husband, Serna, 52, a handyman, would fix up the homes quickly — and Rodriguez would turn around and sell them again at a higher price.

“Rodriguez, trained in Trex Realty’s proven high-pressure sales tactics knew [the family was] new to investing in distressed real estate properties,” according to the family’s lawsuit against Rodriguez, her family and Trex.

In all, the Hialeah Gardens family wound up investing nearly $1.8 million. But by December 2017, the family began getting suspicious because the investment returns on the supposed closings of the homes were no longer being delivered.

Rodriguez and her family insisted the money would be paid, although she suddenly claimed to be “seriously ill” with panic-attack type symptoms and had to be hospitalized. But the scam became glaring when Rodriguez and her family suddenly jetted off to London and Paris.

“Pretty much straight from the hospital to Europe,” said the family’s civil attorney, Douglas Jeffrey. “It devastated them. It decimated their life savings.”

Jeffrey soon discovered that 31 of the 32 properties weren’t even for sale, and all the sales paperwork handed over by Rodriguez was phony. “This was a Ponzi scheme that got out of control. They found a whale and milked it,” said Jeffrey, who testified at the criminal trial.

Filing suit

The family filed a lawsuit against Serna, Rodriguez, her son, Hotniel Crespo, and his wife, Marbelis Crespo, who was also a real estate agent working under the Trex umbrella The suit also named Trex, saying Rodriguez used the company’s resources — even meeting with the the victims at one of the company’s offices.

The lawsuit is still ongoing. Trex has denied any liability and pointed out Rodriguez and Marbelis Crepo were independent contractors. Hotniel Crespo, when reached by news outlet The Real Deal, hung up and refused to comment.

“Trex had nothing to do with any of the fraudulent real estate transactions,” the company’s lawyer, Jesus Bujan, said in a statement. “Trex was not the listing agent nor the cooperating agent in any of the real estate properties involved in the scheme. Trex did not receive any commissions nor any moneys. Trex had absolutely no knowledge of said transactions as the two were acting on their own.”

The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office filed charges against Rodriguez and Serna in the house-flipping scheme in November 2018. They were allowed to post bond while awaiting trial.

After nearly three years, Miami-Dade prosecutors Mary Ernst and Suzanne Von Paulus brought the case to trial. The Hialeah Gardens businessman took the stand for two days, going through all the bogus records. Jurors heard about all the money pouring into bank accounts controlled by Rodriguez and Serna — and the money they spent on personal expenses, including over $220,000 at local casinos, cruises and trips to Disney World and Europe.

The most damning evidence may have come from Rodriguez herself, who despite her defense attorney’s advice to remain silent, insisted on taking the stand. In bizarre testimony, she tried to suggest the victims knew the documents were bogus — while at one point even complimenting state prosecutors for the amount of evidence they’d amassed.

“She basically admitted that she owed the [the family] money,” said her defense attorney, Jorge Alonso. “She destroyed any vestige we had of reasonable doubt.”

Convicted but still in the game

The jury convicted them on Dec. 10 of money laundering, grand theft and organized fraud. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Miguel de la O ordered them taken into custody. A sentencing date is still weeks away. They face up to 90 years in prison.

Little did anyone in the courtroom know, as the trial unfolded, Hialeah police detectives were embarking on an investigation after a slew of people complained that the two had stolen their money as deposits on the same efficiency at 20 W. 60th St., attached to the house where Rodriguez and Serna had lived.

At least eight victims shared a similar story. Desperate for affordable housing in late November and early December, they found the listing on Facebook Marketplace. Rodriguez and Serna met them at the efficiency on the side of the single-family house, according to an arrest report, and walked them through the space.

Police said Serna and Rodriguez told them an elderly man was still living in the unit, but they could move in one week later. But a week passed and she claimed the unit was still not ready.

According to one arrest report, a victim called Rodriguez on Dec. 10 to demand to know when he could move in — she fielded the call, presumably from the courthouse, shortly before the jury delivered its verdict.

On Saturday, Dec. 11, victims began showing up at the efficiency hoping to move in. They all realized “they were scammed out of their money by all being rented the same efficiency,” according to arrest reports by Hialeah detectives Abraham Farkas and Ailin Hernandez.

The linchpin: they “collectively decided to Google” the couple and found news articles on their house-flipping scheme, according to arrest reports.

Hialeah police charged the couple with organized fraud, grand theft and unlawful use of a communications device.

The Public Defender’s Office, which is representing Rodriguez and Serna in the new case, did not return a request for comment.

Jeffrey, the lawyer for the Hialeah Gardens couple, said he believes there may be other victims out there.

He said: “They have been preying on the most vulnerable.”