Florida woman sentenced to 20 years in prison for leading $190.7 million Ponzi fraud scheme

By Kathleen Ditton, Jordan Kissane, Chantal Cook, Joe Roetz

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    MIAMI (WSVN) — A Broward County woman was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on Tuesday for her role in orchestrating a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of approximately $190.7 million.

Johanna Michely Garcia, 41, the former CEO of Pompano Beach-based MJ Capital Funding, LLC, had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud in July.

From October 2020 to August 2021, Garcia and her co-conspirators, including Pavel Ramon Ruiz Hernandez, falsely promised high returns from merchant cash advances (MCAs), instead using funds from new investors to pay off earlier ones, according to prosecutors. This fraudulent scheme led to nearly $90 million in investor losses.

Following the shutdown of MJ Capital Funding by the FBI and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2021, Garcia continued her fraudulent activities, launching a new Ponzi scheme under different business names, prosecutors said.

Some of the victims of the Ponzi scheme spoke exclusively to 7News following the sentencing.

“Plenty of people I know were like, ‘This is all I have. What am I going to do? I might as well kill myself now,’” said Steven Shulman.

Shulman is one of 15,000 investors who trusted their money with Garcia. He said, at first, everything seemed legit.

“Everything was good for like six months,” he said. “Just like that, the person that delivered the check every month on the exact same day, I did more [investments]. The check that I was supposed to get didn’t show up. I tried to call the next day, the next day, no answer. Then I looked up and realized that this was busted by the FBI, the SEC, as a Ponzi scheme.”

Shulman said he trusted Garcia with an estimated $50,000 of his hard-earned money during the pandemic, during a time he was relying on his investment returns the most.

“No money is coming in, no income,” he said. “I was trying to figure out, how can I keep an income stream?”

A woman who didn’t want to be identified told 7News that many victims lost their life savings, their children went hungry, and battled suicide and depression as a result of their losses at Garcia’s hands.

“For the last three-plus years. it’s been about living a nightmare of uncertainty. because we are the victims of this heartless woman, Johanna Garcia,” she said. “I am a single mother. I emptied my life savings into this investment, which I thought was legit, not knowing it was not.”

Now many of the victims are coming to the harsh reality they may never see all the money they lost again.

“I don’t foresee getting a penny back. I resigned myself to that a long time ago,” said Shulman. “I can’t do anything to her. I can’t get the money back. I can’t do anything.”

During the sentencing, Garcia addressed the court. She told the victims that she was sorry to the people she had hurt.

Her defense told 7News that the receivership assigned to her case had recovered one-third of the misappropriated funds.

The victims will have to wait and see how much money will be repaid to them in the future.

Ruiz Hernandez, who pleaded guilty in 2023, was sentenced to over nine years in prison in September 2023.

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