Latin music icon Don Omar has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against a criminally charged associate of radio host DJ Envy, alleging he was duped into a fraudulent real-estate deal.
Omar, whose real name is William Omar Landron, says in the complaint that he has invested in properties with Cesar Pina and his real estate company since 2019 and that Pina has vanished $2 million from one deal. Although a year has passed since the “Fast and Furious” actor’s investment, Pina has yet to produce “a single document relevant to the acquisition, renovation, and rental of the properties,” the suit alleged.
The money, it says, “has, for all intents and purposes, disappeared.” Omar’s company, Prime Platinum, is suing Pina and his company for breach of contract, fraudulent inducement, and unjust enrichment and seeking $2 million in damages.
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Pina, 45, was charged in federal court last month with one count of wire fraud for allegedly bilking dozens of clients out of millions. DJ Envy, who promoted Pina as the co-host of The Breakfast Club radio show, has not been criminally charged but has been sued by people who invested with Pina.
As previously reported by The Daily Beast, victims of the alleged scam say they were recruited through real-estate seminars DJ Envy co-hosted—and they say they would never have invested without his endorsement. DJ Envy has denied any knowledge of Pina’s alleged misconduct, and his lawyer claims that the radio host may be a scam victim himself. Pina, who is out on a $1 million bond, has denied the allegations. Lawyers for DJ Envy and Pina did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Where there is smoke, there is fire,” Omar’s lawyer, Carlos Friger, told The Daily Beast.
Omar’s lawsuit is the latest litigation to point the finger at DJ Envy’s celebrity as the gateway to the alleged fraud.
“DJ Envy’s stamp of approval provided a legitimacy and platform that the Defendant Pina did not otherwise have,” the lawsuit states. “As a result of the constant public validation, especially through DJ Envy’s purported personal experiences and purported bulletproof blue-chip investments with the Defendant Pina, Landron’s interest peaked in seeking ‘generational wealth’ by building a real estate portfolio.”
The lawsuit states that Omar and his company reached out to Pina to talk about potential real estate business opportunities and invested in a series of properties. Over the next two years, Omar’s company “entered and executed over a dozen separate real estate transactions for properties located in Paterson, New Jersey, Chicago, Illinois, and Miami, Florida.”
As part of the arrangement, Omar’s company would put up the initial capital to acquire the property that Pina found, and then Pina would remodel the space to “flip” it for a profit.
In August 2022, Pina approached Prime Platinum about “another great investment opportunity” that would require Omar’s company to buy a percentage of Pina’s company, From Start 2 Flip Chicago, for $2 million, the lawsuit alleges. The deal called for Pina to buy and flip three Chicago properties within three months “while simultaneously securing the tenants for the rental of the units,” the lawsuit claims.
Pina is accused of breaching the agreement by failing to buy and remodel the properties, rent them, and return Omar’s $2 million.
“After several months of requesting documents, in an attempt to verify ownership and in exercise of due diligence, the Plaintiff Prime Platinum was stone-walled at every request and simply delayed,” the lawsuit states. “Specifically, the Plaintiff Prime Platinum’s requests for any closing documents, deeds, renovation updates, marketing materials, and the like, were never complied with.”
The lawsuit alleges that Pina had no intention of following through with the proposed plan. A copy of the “stock and asset purchase agreement” was also included in the lawsuit, which states that if Pina failed to purchase, acquire, and close on the properties, he would have to return the $2 million within 10 days.
Omar’s allegations do not mention Pina’s ongoing federal criminal case, in which prosecutors charge the real-estate investor with duping clients. They say Pina promised clients a 20 to 45 percent return within five months but “engaged in a Ponzi-like scheme wherein he commingled victim investors’ money and used victim investors' investments to pay off prior investors and cover personal expenditures,” prosecutors charge.
DJ Envy discussed his relationship with Pina after Pina’s October arrest, saying the seminars were meant to “uplift my community” and that he was not privy to any alleged misdeeds. On an Oct. 24 Instagram Live, Pina also said DJ Envy was “never in the room” during deals but denied any wrongdoing.
“They call me Cesar Madoff—it’s crazy,” Pina said on Instagram Live.
