DJ Envy has come under scrutiny for his association with accused real estate scammer Cesar Pina — but now Pina is speaking out, claiming Envy “had nothing to do with” the scheme amid several lawsuits.
“In all these lawsuits, these 20 lawsuits, DJ Envy was never in the room with me,” Pina said in an Instagram Live video posted this week and re-shared on YouTube by Tony the Closer. “DJ Envy has nothing to do with any of these 20 lawsuits by these people who are suing me.”
Pina, a real estate investor from New Jersey who has appeared frequently on DJ Envy’s iHeartRadio show, breakfast club, he was arrested Oct. 18 on federal charges of running a multimillion-dollar “Ponzi-like” investment fraud scheme.
Pina was charged with one count of wire fraud, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said in a news release. After appearing in federal court in Newark, Pina was released on $1 million bail with electronic monitoring.
Although DJ Envy (whose real name is RaaShaun Casey) was not named in the charges, court documents state, “Pina teamed up with a celebrity disc jockey and radio personality to hold real estate seminars across the country. Through these seminars, self-promotional efforts and other marketing strategies, Pina has gained a significant following on social media.”
DJ Envy’s attorney, Massimo D’Angelo, told PEOPLE that the radio host was not involved in the alleged scheme and has filed motions to dismiss the two lawsuits naming Envy.
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“Envy is a victim and is in the same place as other alleged victims in these schemes,” he says.
According to D’Angelo, Pina presented Envy with an investment opportunity in late 2019 that involved renovating a vacant school property in Paterson, NJ and building an apartment building.
Pina was to lead all aspects of the construction of one- and two-bedroom apartments that would be rented at market rent, D’Angelo says. In exchange for Envy’s $500,000 investment, D’Angelo claims Pina promised to return Envy’s investment within a year and to receive a monthly dividend of approximately $17,000.
According to the filing, the scheme — in which Pina accepted investments ostensibly to buy, remodel and sell real estate — began in 2017.
“To induce his victims, Pina often promised a 20 to 45 percent return on investment within five months,” the complaint said. “But instead of using the victims’ investments as promised, Pina engaged in a Ponzi-like scheme by commingling the victims’ money, using the victims’ new investments to pay off previous victims and spending the victims’ funds on personal expenses. The investigation revealed that Pina defrauded dozens of investors out of millions of dollars.”
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On October 11, DJ Envy responded to the allegations of his involvement, in a video posted on his and The breakfast clubUser Instagram accounts.
“Let me explain some things,” he told co-host Charlamagne tha God. “My lawyers don’t want me to talk, but I think there are things I need to clear up.”
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“Cesar and I ran seminars,” he said. “The reasons I did these seminars is because I wanted to uplift my community. I wanted to teach my community about real estate, things I didn’t know when I first bought my first home. I wanted to educate our community about investing and generational wealth.”
“So I held these seminars and brought industry professionals to all these seminars,” he continued. “That’s what I wanted to do for my people. Now, Cesar? If he took money, I wasn’t privy to it, nor did I know at all. But I understand how people feel if they gave him money, because I gave him a lot money that I haven’t seen a dollar returned. But for anyone to say I was involved, that’s completely untrue.”
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Source: HIS Education