After admitting to being the mastermind of a $190.7 million Ponzi scheme, a Broward County woman faces 20 years in prison.
Former CEO of MJ Capital Funding, LLC was Johanna Michely Garcia, a 41-year-old Broward County resident. On July 16, Garcia entered a guilty plea to conspire to commit mail and wire fraud.
Court records indicate that as part of the conspiracy, Garcia led participants, namely Pavel Ramon Ruiz Hernandez, in an investment Ponzi scam that defrauded investors out of roughly $190,700,000.
Court documents state that Garcia’s MJ Capital Funding supplied merchant cash advances, or MCAs, a kind of short-term loan that small firms generally use. From October 2020 to August 2021, Garcia and others engaged in a scheme to deceitfully ask for money from investors in order to finance MJ Capital Funding’s MCAs.
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The FBI closed down MJ Capital Funding in the fall of 2021.
Ruiz Hernandez was charged in August 2022, entered a guilty plea in April 2023, and was given a sentence of 110 months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, in September 2023, according to a media release.
Garcia’s sentencing is scheduled for September 20.
