MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Miguel M. de la O issued an “alias capias” warrant for Miami Gardens Pastor Eric Readon Tuesday morning after he failed to show up in court for his 9 a.m. arraignment hearing.
Readon’s private attorney Nathan Diamond also failed to appear in court on Readon’s behalf.
Alias capias warrants are issued in felony cases when the defendant fails to appear for court.
Unlike bench warrants, when someone is taken into custody on an alias capias warrant, the defendant cannot be released from custody by posting a cash bond.
Readon was booked back into jail early Tuesday evening.
Local 10 News reporter Terrell Forney spoke to Diamond Tuesday evening.
Diamond says he believes this was a malicious effort against his client, and claims that neither he nor Readon were given any notice to appear in court.
He said his client did the right thing by turning himself in Tuesday.
Readon, 46, was arrested last week on charges of organized fraud, organized scheme to defraud, exploitation of the elderly, theft from the elderly and grand theft.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office alleges that Readon took advantage of a 76-year-old man named Edward Fuller who was trying to obtain a mortgage or a line of credit to finish work on his home. It’s a story Local 10 first reported on back in 2017.
Prosecutors say Readon introduced himself as a pastor and told Fuller that for $15,000 he would help him get a loan to complete the construction, but that he deceptively took ownership of the home on Northwest 19th Avenue in Miami.
“There is something particularly galling when an alleged fraudster snatches away the very hopes and dreams of one of our senior residents,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement. “Elderly exploitation so often is a complex shell-game depending on great trust being quietly transformed into financial deception via a movement of signed contracts, deeds and paperwork. I thank the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for their work in helping us bring this case before our criminal courts.”
Fernandez Rundle’s office says that Readon, pastor of the New Beginning Missionary Baptist Church in Miami Gardens, left Fuller with thousands of dollars of credit card debt and that Readon’s total theft from Fuller was approximately $267,000.
“I’m happy that Pastor Readon has been taken into custody,” Fuller told Local 10 News last week. “I’m having a personal problem since this man did what he did.”
The State Attorney’s Office says Readon also used the same Northwest 19th Avenue property to defraud newlyweds Safiyah and Calvin Singleton, promising them “a rent-to-buy agreement on their dream first home and thereby induced them to give him $3,100. Readon stole Safiyah and Calvin’s money and left them without a home to sleep in just before their first Christmas together as a married couple.”
Readon was initially released from jail days after his arrest after posting a $42,500 bond.
Local 10 News has also learned that the Broward State Attorney’s Office is investigating a possible fraud case against Readon.
Local 10 News has been reporting on concerns about Readon for nearly five years, seeking to talk to him about his business practices since early 2017.
He lost a $50 million lawsuit he filed against WPLG and last spring was ordered to pay the station more than $70,000 after losing his appeal.