6th arrest made in 2022 Hammocks HOA investigation; 2 members take plea deals

A sixth person has been arrested in the Hammocks Homeowners Association multimillion-dollar fraud investigation.

The Hammocks Homeowners Association, the largest in Miami-Dade County, has 18,400 residents. The State Attorney’s Office said all of those residents were ripped off.

On Thursday, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office announced on Thursday the arrest of Ivan Dario Diez.

According to prosecutors, Diez was one of those faulty vendors who received checks for doing little to no work. He billed the HOA for around $172,000 for work that was never performed, including cleanup after a hurricane that never made landfall.

Diez now joins five other members of the HOA board who were arrested in November 2022 for racketeering and an organized scheme to defraud after being accused of stealing over $1 million from its residents.

But that was just the tip of the iceberg, as the State Attorney’s Office said the swindling of funds by these members totaled over $6 million.

“Six million dollars has been recovered from what was misappropriated in waste, fraud and abuse,” said Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle.

In addition, two of the five members already behind bars took a guilty plea deal. Monica Ghilardi, the former HOA vice president, and Myriam Arango Rodgers, the former HOA treasurer, pleaded guilty to grand theft and will cooperate with the investigation.

“I’m here to announce guilty pleas by two of the former members that we talked about, had been arrested,” said Fernandez-Rundle.

Ghilardi received over $200,000 in stolen money and signed checks for vendors who did little to no work. Rodgers is said to have also signed checks to faulty vendors and will serve five years of probation.

Fernandez-Rundle urged others involved to turn themselves in or face a knock on their door.

“We’re coming to get you. It’s either now or later, so in some ways, it’s much better to cooperate with us early on, like some of these did,” she said.

Diez will appear in bond court Friday morning. He faces multiple charges, including grand theft and an organized scheme to defraud.