MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Thirty-eight-year-old Yasnely Pedroso had once been fired from the Westwind Lakes Garden Homes Condominium Association, Inc. for destroying records, among other things, according to police.
Enter her mother, Idoris Pedroso. According to Miami-Dade police, when the 63-year-old became board president, she rehired her daughter as an assistant.
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That’s when police said the pair teamed up with Yasnely’s boyfriend, Yoel Tapanes Fernandez, 42, to steal tens of thousands of dollars from the homeowners’ association.
The condo complex is located at 6610 SW 152nd Place in the West Kendall area.
According to police, the trio’s scheme began in 2020.
An arrest report states that Tapanes Fernandez received more than $42,000 worth of checks for maintenance work he never performed. Those checks went to an inactive company called “Yoel Maintenance LLC.”
Police said the checks were supposed to have been signed by two board members, but were instead signed only by Idoris Pedroso.
The arrest report states Yasnely Pedroso tried to get someone to fabricate an invoice to justify the $42,178 Tapanes Fernandez got from the association.
Police said that person, whose position wasn’t identified, told her “he was not going to do that” because he knew Tapanes Fernandez “did not do work around the association and he did not want to jeopardize his business.”
A new board eventually took over, police said, and told authorities there were no records or invoices on file for work performed by Tapanes Fernandez.
The arrest report states that police located Yasnely Pedroso and Tapanes Fernandez at their home on Southwest 160th Terrace on Thursday and questioned the pair.
Police wrote that Tapanes Fernandez claimed to have “painted parking bumpers, the pool and pressure cleaned throughout the association” but, yet, couldn’t remember the name of his company and didn’t have any invoices.
Authorities also said that type of work could not have cost $42,000.
In a separate interview, Yasnely Pedroso told police that her boyfriend worked for a painting company, police said. The problem with that, police said, is that he told detectives during his interview that he didn’t work for said company.
Yasnely Pedroso, detectives noted, claimed the HOA paid her more than $40,000 yearly but had no reported wages or earnings.
Police arrested the pair on charges of grand theft and organized scheme to defraud. Both were being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $7,500 bond as of late Friday morning.
According to the arrest report, authorities were still looking for Idoris Pedroso as of Friday. It’s unclear what charges she will face.
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