Developer Avra Jain's Creditors Try to Claw Back Her University of Miami Donations

In 2020, a Miami-Dade Circuit judge ordered prominent Miami developer Avra Jain to pay $2.4 million in court judgments to her former attorneys over her unsuccessful legal malpractice lawsuit.

Now, nearly five years later, her creditors say Jain has yet to cough up any of the money and they want to claw back her contributions to the University of Miami (UM). They have filed a motion directing UM to return $15,435 in donations Jain made after the judgments were handed down.

"Through post-judgment discovery, the judgment creditors have discovered that Jain gifted $15,435 from April 2021 to present to the University of Miami," the motion states. "These transfers are expressly recorded in UM's internal records as 'Outright Gifts.'"

Along with her wife, Dalia Lagoa, Jain runs the real estate development company Vagabond Group, which has invested in and revitalized historic properties in Little Haiti, Little River, Wynwood, Midtown, and the MiMo District along Biscayne Boulevard. The real estate company developed Factory Town, the popular late-night music venue in Hialeah.

While recognized as a real estate visionary, Jain has been embroiled in a legal saga dating back to 2009. Her former business partner Abraham Cohen sued her, her company H-H Investments LLC, and investor Paul Cashman Murphy for $4.1 million, alleging they stopped making payments on his $5 million stake in a failed luxury condominium project in Doral.

Jain filed a counterclaim for fraud and misrepresentation, claiming that Cohen lied about the project's viability to get them to buy his stake in it. However, in 2017, then-Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jacqueline Hogan Scola ruled in favor of Cohen and handed down a $8.2 million judgment against Jain.

Later that year, the developer sued the law firm Buchanan Ingersoll and Rooney and former partner Richard A. Morgan for $15 million in damages over her legal representation after she lost the Cohen lawsuit. She sued for malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty, alleging that her former attorneys made an "amateur mistake" by failing to acknowledge that Cohen never introduced the original promissory note that Cohen and Jain had signed at the center of the legal kerfuffle.

"Plaintiff rested his case without introducing into evidence the original note and defendants did not raise the failure to introduce the original note into evidence in any motion," her lawsuit contended.

Then-Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman dismissed Jain's lawsuit on March 13, 2020. The judge called the lawsuit "a misguided and desperate attempt to shift Jain's adjudicated contractual liability onto her former counsel." Jain was ordered to pay $2.4 million in attorney fees to the law firm and Morgan as a result.

To date, the judgment entered in favor of Morgan and the firm amounts to $3 million and $187,617, respectively, owing to accrued interest.

As these balances remain outstanding, the creditors learned that Jain has made several contributions to UM, including to the School of Architecture, Miller School of Medicine, and the athletics department, since 2021. Jain serves as the chair of the university's School of Architecture's Master of Real Estate Development and Urbanism Advisory Board.

Her creditors sent a demand letter to the university on January 10 to return the funds to satisfy the judgment, according to a January 10 motion.

"In this case, the judgment creditors are hopeful that UM will cooperate with its demands and return the funds fraudulently transferred to it by Jain," attorneys from Stok Kohn and Braverman write. "As this court is aware, the judgment creditors have pursued collection on their judgment for over four years. During that time, Jain has managed to bog down the judgment creditors' efforts with endless motion practice."

However, Jain's attorneys say they are not entitled to these funds given they came from a joint bank account owned by Jain and her wife. Their response also points out that the creditors cannot pursue fraud claims under two different Florida statutes.

The hearing is set for February 20.

"The problem is that we shouldn't have to check the pillars of society to get paid this judgment," Robert Stok of Stok Kon and Braverman tells New Times. "Before someone could promote themselves as a benefactor of a learning institution, they should have to pay their judgments, and she circumvented that by not paying her judgments and donating money to the University of Miami."