Derek Maldonado, a hairdresser in New York, was searching for alternatives to diversify his wealth when he first heard DJ Envy, co-host of the insanely standard radio present The Breakfast Membership, promote an upcoming July 2022 actual property seminar on the Jacob Javits Center.
“DJ Envy has been a giant identify for a really very long time and I’ve been a hip-hop fan my complete life. He’s a giant identify,” Maldonado advised The Day by day Beast. “So I inform my pregnant spouse that we’re going to this seminar as a result of we need to become involved in actual property.”
On the $250-a-head, four-hour occasion, he was impressed by the lectures from mortgage brokers, Airbnb specialists, and the hosts of a preferred property podcast. “It was a bunch of respected folks. It felt very legit. Plus, DJ Envy was up there the entire time, internet hosting the occasion and instructing folks,” he stated.
Ultimately, he needed to be taught extra from Cesar Pina, who was described on the seminar as DJ Envy’s enterprise affiliate and the mastermind behind the actual property operation.
That opened the door to what he now calls the worst mistake of his life: He invested $200,000 to companion with Pina and flip a New Jersey single-family dwelling—and by no means noticed a dime.
Then Maldonado discovered he was simply one other alleged sufferer of Pina, a soft-spoken New Jersey ex-convict who boasts 307,000 followers on his Instagram account, “Flipping NJ.” Prosecutors allege that for not less than 5 years, Pina engaged in a multimillion-dollar actual property scheme, promising dozens of shoppers profitable alternatives in the event that they invested in his expansive property portfolio. He has denied any wrongdoing.
DJ Envy, whose actual identify is RaaShaun Casey, has not been charged or named within the alleged scheme. He has denied any information of Pina’s alleged misdeeds and claims to be a sufferer as properly.
However a number of lawsuits in opposition to the radio host and victims who spoke to The Day by day Beast say they’d have by no means identified in regards to the seminars—or encountered Pina—if not for DJ Envy. One lawyer, who represents 9 plaintiffs, advised The Day by day Beast that he has spoken to greater than 50 individuals who declare to have been caught up within the rip-off.
“DJ Envy’s backing of Pina and Flipping NJ was one of many driving elements for me,” Stanley Acosta, who misplaced $150,000 of his life financial savings within the alleged rip-off, advised The Day by day Beast. “I listened to him for years; I trusted him. And I misplaced nearly every little thing due to that belief.”
{A photograph} of Stanley Acosta along with his household.
Stanley Acosta
Pina was in jail in 2005, serving 18 months for bank card fraud and drug-related crimes, when he bought fascinated about actual property and the way it might make him wealthy.
He befriended a New Jersey real-estate developer serving time for political corruption, he defined on a Nov. 2, 2022, episode of the Bootleg Kev podcast. In alternate for recommendations on survive as an inmate, the developer confirmed Pina the ropes of investing in actual property and “flipping” homes.
Pina stated that when he was launched in 2006, he shortly landed a job managing mortgages whereas nonetheless in a midway home. It didn’t take lengthy for him to launch his real-estate operation, flipping a three-story household dwelling in Patterson, New Jersey, for a revenue of $70,000. Over the following decade, Pina scooped up property throughout New Jersey and documented his booming enterprise on Instagram.
Prosecutors allege that Pina’s enterprise took a legal flip in 2017. The legal criticism filed final month doesn’t identify DJ Envy, however prosecutors say Pina “partnered with a star disc jockey and radio persona to conduct real-estate seminars across the nation.” They be aware that “by means of these seminars, self-promotional efforts, and different advertising methods, Pina developed a major social media following.”
In keeping with the music journal Complicated, DJ Envy first joined forces with Pina in 2017 to interrupt into the real-estate scene. He was a longtime celeb, having co-hosted The Breakfast Membership, the nationally syndicated Energy 105.1 present with roughly 8 million month-to-month listeners, since 2010. The 46-year-old boasts about 2.2 million private followers on Instagram and has a reported internet price of about $7 million.
Charlamagne tha God and DJ Envy on the 2023 iHeartRadio Music Pageant.
Wealthy Polk/Getty
DJ Envy started selling his and Pina’s actual property endeavors and seminars on the present. Pina appeared on the present to debate his work with DJ Envy, real-estate methods, and his 2021 ebook, Flipping Keys.
“How has the drug sport impacted what you are promoting truly?” co-host Charlamagne tha God requested Pina on the present whereas holding the ebook.
“Within the streets, we’re counting numbers, we’re analyzing what’s coming in, what’s popping out,” Pina responded. “Actual property is similar factor, it’s numbers. As an alternative of us promoting medication on the block, now we truly personal the block. As a result of we personal the homes there.”
DJ Envy and Pina additionally launched promotional movies about upcoming seminars and recommendation on property funding. Posters promoting upcoming seminars normally showcased headshots of each of them. The pair recruited celebrities, together with Snoop Canine, to hype their enterprise on Instagram.
The publicity and social media progress allowed Pina to drag in additional shoppers fascinated about investing in his actual property properties in New Jersey and elsewhere, prosecutors allege. Pina usually promised shoppers a 20 % to 45 % return on their preliminary funding inside 5 months, the criticism says. Nevertheless, prosecutors allege, he “engaged in a Ponzi-like scheme whereby he commingled sufferer traders’ cash and used sufferer traders’ investments to repay prior traders and canopy private expenditures.”
Pina, who allegedly defrauded dozens out of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}, was charged final month with one rely of wire fraud and launched on a $1 million secured bond with digital monitoring. Attorneys for DJ Envy and Pina didn’t instantly reply for remark.
Whereas DJ Envy has not been criminally implicated, he’s named as a defendant in a number of pending lawsuits that accuse Pina of swindling traders beneath the guise of a golden funding alternative. (DJ Envy and his authorized workforce have filed to dismiss a number of of these lawsuits, denying any wrongdoing.)
After Pina’s arrest, DJ Envy briefly mentioned their relationship on The Breakfast Membership—and defined that he needed their seminars to “uplift my group” and train others “about actual property.”
“So I did these seminars and introduced business professionals to all these seminars, whether or not it was real-estate brokers from totally different markets, contractors, cash lenders. I even introduced Public sale.com to truly present folks buy homes on-line,” DJ Envy stated on the Oct. 11 present. “Now, Cesar, if he took cash, I wasn’t aware of it nor did I even know. However I do perceive how folks really feel in the event that they did give him cash as a result of I gave him some huge cash that I didn’t see a greenback of return.”
DJ Envy listening onstage throughout 2022 InvestFest.
Paras Griffin/Getty
Jose Rodriguez says that the primary actual property seminar DJ Envy and Pina co-hosted in October 2018 was at a highschool in Patterson, New Jersey, and garnered a crowd of 500.
Rodriguez had already made a reputation for himself on-line, serving to shoppers with credit score schooling and restore as “The Credit score Dude.” After briefly messaging with Pina about their mutual monetary pursuits on Instagram, Rodriguez stated he went to the inaugural occasion and was impressed by the quantity of people that turned up, particularly since there was no meals, water, or breaks.
Shortly after the occasion, Pina requested if he needed to hitch this system to talk about credit score restore, and over the following 4 years, he took half in about 40 seminars throughout the nation and on-line, Rodriguez stated.
The occasions, which DJ Envy headlined and infrequently acted because the emcee, consisted of a collection of audio system who would current for about 10 to fifteen minutes. Rodriguez stated that the timeline was simply bent if Pina and DJ Envy have been engaged in a dialog as company, who sat in lined chairs, watched.
“They might all the time say, ‘Do you could have a presentation? When you have a slide, give it to us,’ but it surely’s not like anyone was even actually fact-checking it,” Rodriguez stated. “Generally they’ve like a pamphlet.”
Jose Rodriguez talking at a real-estate seminar.
Jose Rodriguez
Lawsuits filed in opposition to DJ Envy, Pina, and others say that after the speaker displays, attendees “have been provided alternatives to companion with Pina, [DJ Envy] and his workforce in customized real-estate funding offers.”
“Members of the Pina community, together with DJ Envy, arrange cubicles at which they provided personal consultations with seminar attendees in addition to meet and greets,” Acosta’s lawsuit states. Through the meet and greets and personal consultations, Pina additionally allegedly provided his private “consulting providers” at his New Jersey workplace “for flat fee charges starting from $1,500 to $2,500 per assembly and extra.”
Rodriguez stated the final seminar DJ Envy and Pina hosted was on the Javits Middle in July 2022. (The connection between Rodriguez and DJ Envy turned bitter in late 2022. The pair have since sued one another over Rodriguez’s credit score restore firm. DJ Envy claims he was not paid for selling the corporate, whereas Rodriguez claims that the radio host uncared for to adequately promote the enterprise.)
Within the viewers at a December 2021 seminar on the Javits Middle sat Acosta.
Acosta, a 31-year-old government administrative assistant, advised The Day by day Beast he went after listening to seminar promotions as a each day listener of The Breakfast Membership. He stated that he wasn’t too impressed with the prolonged occasion, saying it was “extra of a hype” than a trove of latest info.
However, he stated, he nonetheless believed that the audio system “knew what they have been speaking about.” So he supplied his info to one among Pina’s associates and expressed curiosity in partnering on a future funding alternative.
Pina reached out a couple of weeks later, inviting him to an in-person assembly at his New Jersey workplace. Earlier than the assembly, Pina despatched Acosta a contract to speculate $150,000 in native property, predicting he would obtain not less than $45,000 again after simply 5 months when the property bought. His lawsuit in opposition to Pina, DJ Envy, and others additionally states that Acosta was entitled to curiosity.
“Though DJ Envy was not current at this assembly, Plaintiff was led to imagine by Cesar that DJ Envy was concerned as a companion in his actual property enterprise and additional that the property topic to Plaintiff’s ‘three way partnership’ was one among their partnership properties,” the amended lawsuit states in regards to the preliminary assembly.
It added that Acosta “wouldn’t have invested within the three way partnership however for his perception that DJ Envy was concerned as a companion within the enterprise.”
Acosta stated he was cautious of the contract and had a lawyer revise it. After some forwards and backwards, Acosta agreed to satisfy Pina at his workplace once more on March 9, 2022, to finish the deal. He introduced $150,000 in money.
{A photograph} of the $150,000 Stanley Acosta gave to Cesar Pina in March 2022.
Stanley Acosta
“It was cash I had saved up from my job, cash I bought from my wedding ceremony, from promoting sneakers on the aspect,” Acosta stated. “It was my life’s financial savings, however I believed this was a protected deal.”
The primary pink flag got here the minute Pina took the cash.
“I gave him the $150,000 and I requested him if he needed to rely the cash. He stated no,” Acosta stated.
He didn’t count on to listen to from Pina till August, the maturation date of his funding. However Pina didn’t attain out till October—when he texted Acosta that he was going to arrange a time to satisfy. Acosta referred to as and texted Pina for months for an replace, with scant response. Then, in April 2023, Pina claimed that each one his “offers have been backed up” and that issues have been “all closing now,” the lawsuit states.
“Round this time, I had watched that Netflix collection on Bernie Madoff—and one thing clicked,” Acosta stated. “I advised my pals, one among which additionally invested with Caesar, ‘We’ve been bought.’ Should you watch this collection, that’s what occurred to us.”
Acosta’s fears have been confirmed in June when Pina blocked his quantity, he stated. It wasn’t lengthy earlier than he began listening to about different Pina traders who misplaced cash. “This deal turned my complete life the wrong way up,” Acosta stated. “I don’t have a greenback to my identify and I’ve my kids I must assist.”
Like Maldonado, Acosta confused that he would have by no means invested in Pina’s firm if not for DJ Envy’s promotion and affect. He added that he won’t ever hearken to The Breakfast Membership once more as a result of he not trusts DJ Envy.
Alexander Schachtel, a New Jersey legal professional representing Maldonado and Acosta, confused that his lawsuits in opposition to DJ Envy, Pina, and others solely account for a share of Pina’s alleged victims. One other of his shoppers advised The Day by day Beast that he gave Pina $835,000 to assist flip three New Jersey properties. One more lawsuit naming Pina and DJ Envy says two folks have been bilked out of a mixed $1.5 million.
“From my 9 shoppers, their whole losses beneath the contracts alone are about $3 million,” Schachtel stated. “I’ve additionally spoken to 50 folks at this level… and so they have advised me about their tales, and most of them have shared their contracts with me. I can inform you that at minimal, you’re 50 to 100 victims of this rip-off and the whole quantity of the theft of funds might be round $20 to $30 million.”
The lawyer stated he doesn’t know whether or not DJ Envy must be criminally charged however believes he’s civilly chargeable for utilizing his celeb to spice up Flipping NJ.
DJ Envy has insisted his arms are clear.
“For anyone to say I used to be concerned, that’s completely not true. I’d by no means,” he stated within the Oct. 11 episode of The Breakfast Membership. “I’ve been on radio near 30 years, and by no means in my 30 years’ time did I do nothing however attempt to uplift folks… And I’d by no means take a greenback from anyone.”
{A photograph} of DJ Envy and Cesar Piña attending Brandon Medford Gross sales Academy Launch Occasion on October 04, 2022, in New York Metropolis.
Johnny Nunez/Getty Photos for Brandon Medford Enterprises
Days after he was launched on a $1 million bond, Pina addressed his haters on Instagram Dwell.
“They name me Cesar Madoff—it’s loopy,” he stated within the Oct. 24 rant, denying all allegations in opposition to him.
He claimed that DJ Envy was “by no means within the room” throughout offers and had “nothing to do” with the lawsuits filed in opposition to him. “It fucking sucks, bro. It pisses me off that each one these persons are bashing DJ Envy,” Pina stated.
On the similar time, Pina rejected DJ Envy’s declare that he was a sufferer. “That’s the dumbest shit I ever heard in my life,” Pina stated in regards to the claims. “He’s not a sufferer. He’s my companion; he was an investor.”
In a press release to NBC New York, DJ Envy’s legal professional, Massimo D’Angelo, claimed that his shopper invested $500,000 in one among Pina’s ventures and has but to see his cash. He additionally stated DJ Envy denies any claims of wrongdoing and that he’s solely being invoked in reference to the scheme due to his “celeb standing.” In an August defamation lawsuit in opposition to former NFL star-turned-influencer Tony “the Nearer” Robinson, DJ Envy additionally denies the slanderous allegations and alleges that he’s the sufferer of an internet smear marketing campaign.
And whereas the feds don’t straight tie DJ Envy to the offers themselves, victims of the rip-off are nonetheless blaming the celeb disc jockey for placing them on this place.
“With out DJ Envy, I’d nonetheless have my cash,” Maldonado confused.