As four former Hammocks board members await trial over claims they defrauded the residential community from $2 million, civil lawsuits are taking aim at attorneys for allowing and aiding the alleged grift.

David Gersten, the court-appointed receiver for the Hammocks Community Association, filed lawsuits against law firms and some of their partners in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, seeking $9 million in damages.

The Hammocks, tucked in the western edges of Miami-Dade County, is home to more than 18,000 residents across 3,800 acres between Southwest 120th and 88th streets and between Southwest 147th and 162nd avenues.

In November, authorities arrested Marglli Gallego, her husband Jose Antonio Gonzalez, as well as former board members Myriam Rodgers, Yoleidis Lopez Garcia and Monica Isabel Ghilardi. The five are charged for their role in an alleged scheme that siphoned money from the association through bogus vendors, with much of the funds going to Gallego and Gonzalez, according to an arrest affidavit. All five have pleaded not guilty.

Gersten was appointed receiver in a separate civil case filed last year over assessment hikes and other issues at the Hammocks. He revealed he sued former attorneys for the HOA and Gallego in one of the status reports he periodically files with the court.

The suits mark the latest chapter for the Hammocks, though hardly the end of years of troubles.

In other issues, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida opened an investigation into whether the association –– under the guidance of the former board –– made misrepresentations on applications for Paycheck Protection Program funds, according to Gersten’s report to the court.

The U.S. attorney’s office neither confirmed nor denied whether it is investigating.

If indeed federal authorities are looking into potential PPP fraud, then it would add another layer to the multiple cases involving South Florida’s biggest HOA.

Tangled web of lawsuits

Gersten filed two lawsuits in May, one against law firm Rasco Klock Perez & Nieto and partner Hilton Napoleon II, and another against Elbert Radames Alfaro Berta, Alfaro & Fernandez and its attorney Yudany Fernandez.

In 2020, the association retained Rasco Klock and Napoleon to help with a Miami-Dade Police Department’s poking into the HOA. As a result, the law firm and Napoleon filed defamation lawsuits against law enforcement officers who were looking into Gallego. They also aimed to “silence dissent” by suing residents who were “frustrated” with the prior board and raised concerns about Gallego misappropriating funds, Gersten says in his complaint.

Napoleon called the claims against him “baseless,” adding that the alleged board theft took place before he was hired to represent the association. “They cannot point to one document, one email or anything to suggest that I knew what the prior board was doing,” he said.