DJ Envy has addressed the real estate fraud allegations that have spawned several lawsuits against him and his former business partner, Cesar Pina.
Against his legal team’s wishes, Envy graced The Breakfast Club‘s mic on Wednesday (October 11) to clear the air on the accusations.
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“Let me explain some things,” he began. “So Cesar and myself did seminars. Now, the reason I did these seminars is because I wanted to uplift my community. I wanted to teach my community about real estate. Things that I didn’t know when I was buying my first home.
“So I did these seminars and brought industry professionals to all these seminars, whether it was real estate agents from different markets, contractors, money lenders. I even brought Auction.com to actually show people how to purchase houses online.”
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He continued: “Now Cesar, if he took money I wasn’t privy to it nor did I even know. But I do understand how people feel if they did give him money because I gave him a lot of money that I didn’t see a dollar of return.
“For anybody to say I was involved, that’s totally not true. I would never. I’ve been on radio close to 30 years and never in my 30 years’ time did I do nothing but try to uplift people… And I would never take a dollar from somebody.”
Charlamagne Tha God interjected by pointing out that DJ Envy has been accused of merely introducing the alleged victims to Cesar Pina, rather than stealing money from them.
“Nah, they basically said I was privy to it and that wasn’t true at all,” Envy replied. “If you read the court documents, Cesar wrote an affidavit that says, ‘DJ Envy, RaaShaun Casey, had no knowledge of me investing people’s money. He wasn’t there, he wasn’t part of those conversations. He wasn’t anywhere near those meetings.’
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“And those are documents that are out there, so if we’re gonna talk about truth, let’s talk about the truth.”
The Breakfast Club co-host, along with Cesar Pina and his wife Jessica, were sued in July by Anthony Barone and Anthony Martini, who claim that they defrauded them out of $1.5 million over an apartment complex project that never materialized.
The plaintiffs said that they invested in two real estate ventures, the Taylor Company and Flip 2 Dao, but Envy and Pinas took the money without following through with the project.
Envy was also accused of purchasing a series of properties in Paterson, New Jersey, undervaluing them, and then fixing-and-flipping them or renting them out.
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Barone and Martini claim that the trio used the funds to support their extravagant lifestyles and/or to pay off other investors.
DJ Envy has filed to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming that he is a victim himself and lost $500,000 on a separate project with the Pinas to renovate and reposition a former school into an apartment building.
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The couple allegedly promised Envy that they would return his initial investment within one year and he would receive a monthly dividend of roughly $17,000.
However, Envy has apparently yet to receive any distributions or return of capital in connection with the project.
