MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Former Hammocks Homeowners Association President Marglli Gallego, who was arrested last year for misappropriating funds, appeared in court once again Wednesday, one day after prosecutors charged her and four other board members in what they described as an “organized crime scheme.”
Gallego’s husband, Jose Gonzalez, along with Monica Ghilardi, Myriam Rodgers and Yoleidis Lopez Garcia, were arrested on numerous charges, including racketeering and money laundering.
Prosecutors say Gallego and Gonzalez essentially hired and paid themselves and family members as so called “vendors” for The Hammocks, a southwest Miami-Dade community home to one of the largest homeowners associations in Florida.
“These alleged vendors had no other significant sources of income, other than the funds that came from the homeowners association of The Hammocks,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said Tuesday.
The state alleged that the five board members wrote more than 170 checks to those alleged “vendors”—shell companies to funnel and launder the association’s money.
“We are celebrating that the homeowners are free. This is like a cancer. This is something that is spreading all around. We’re not the only community that is going through this,” longtime Hammocks resident Ana Danton told Local 10 News on Tuesday.
Danton said she plans to be in court Thursday on behalf of herself and her neighbors.
She’s hoping a judge will appoint a special receiver to manage the HOA and its funds.