Exec whose lawsuit exposed Mayor Suarez’s ties to developer seeks $150,000 in back pay

A former executive for a real estate developer that paid Miami Mayor Francis Suarez $10,000 a month “for unknown services” is back in court trying to collect on his own back pay.

Greg Brooks, who was fired as chief financial officer for Location Ventures LLC, originally sued his former employer in May — a legal filing that first exposed the Coral Gable-based company’s consulting arrangement with the mayor. A month later, according to court records, Brooks reached a $150,000 settlement with the firm. But in a motion filed last week to enforce the settlement, Brooks claims Location Ventures violated the deal by failing to pay him the money by a June 16 deadline.

In the motion, Brooks’ lawyer Brian Pollock says he was told by an attorney for Location Ventures that the developer had not yet made the settlement payment “because it was having financial difficulties.” Pollock noted that Location Ventures has failed to fulfill its obligation to Brooks “despite lavish spending and portraying its successes in the public arena,” according to the court motion.

If Location Ventures fails to pay Brooks’ settlement amount, a Miami-Dade Circuit judge could enforce it — but, ultimately, the former executive may have to pursue his claim as a potential creditor if the Location Ventures were to file for bankruptcy, according to legal experts.

Location Ventures’ attorney, Brian Goodkind, declined to comment on Monday. Asked if he was filing a response to Brooks’ court motion, Goodkind said, “No comment. I’m going to get off the phone.”

The development company was thrust into the spotlight in May when the Miami Herald reported that Location Ventures had paid Suarez at least $170,000 since September 2021, and that the firm’s records showed that the mayor and his office had assisted CEO Rishi Kapoor in obtaining critical permits for a $70 million mixed-used residential and commercial project in Coconut Grove last year.

The FBI and Securities and Exchange Commission, along with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office and Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and the Public Trust, have opened investigations into Location Ventures’ relationship with Suarez and the developer’s financial dealings.

Suarez, who launched a bid for the GOP nomination for president last month, told the Herald that he was raising investment capital for Location Venures and its URBIN division, which has been developing projects in Coconut Grove, Miami Beach and Coral Gables over the past three years. (This month, The city of Miami Beach shut down URBIN’s project on Washington Avenue on allegations of unpermitted construction.)

Suarez, a lawyer now in his second term as mayor, did not report his side income from Location Ventures on a financial disclosure form in 2022 and 2023, citing a loophole that didn’t require him to do so because the payments represented less than five percent of his total earnings in those years.

But Kapoor, Location Ventures’ CEO, said that Suarez’s role was providing marketing and “programming” services, offering ideas on the mix of retail stores and restaurants at URBIN’s projects in Miami-Dade County.

In May, Kapoor’s company was sued by Brooks, who held the CFO position at Location Ventures from August 2022 to March 2023. Brooks was fired by Kapoor after he raised a slew of concerns about alleged “financial improprieties” involving the CEO’s handling of his company’s funds.

Among many allegations of “impropriety” lodged against Kapoor, Brooks’ lawsuit highlighted the $10,000 monthly payments to the mayor “for unknown services,” as previously reported by the Herald. Brooks also accused Kapoor of using development funds to pay for his nearly $6 million Coral Gables waterfront home in Cocoplum, a $10,000-a-month private chef to cook on his yacht and a McLaren sports car, without reporting the income to the IRS.

In his suit, Brooks was seeking to collect $80,000 in unpaid bonuses for obtaining mortgages for URBIN’s Commodore Plaza mixed-use development in the Grove and a single-family home project in the same community, as well as additional compensation.

In early June, Brooks finalized a confidential settlement with Location Ventures, which his attorney says addressed his bonus payments and his refusal to participate in what he believed to be financial improprieties at the development company. According to court records. the settlement agreement was signed by Kapoor, the CEO, his brother, Romy Kapoor, the general counsel, and Daniel Motha, a partner in the firm.

But Pollock, Brooks’ attorney, said Location Ventures breached the agreement when it did not pay his client on time. Asked about the potential financial troubles for Location Ventures he cited in his motion, Pollock declined to go into specifics.

“You can draw the conclusion that when a company says it is financially sound but cannot pay a $150,000 settlement, it has a serious problem,” Pollock told the Herald.

Location Ventures’ CEO, Kapoor, did not return an email and voicemail seeking comment for this story.