LAWSUIT TIES ‘BRAZEN FRAUD’ IN REAL ESTATE DEALS TO HUSBAND’S MURDER OF FORT LAUDERDALE WOMAN IN SPAIN

The last known act of Ana Knezevich’s life was to finalize the sale of a house in Oakland Park.

Within hours of signing the deal, the 40-year-old Fort Lauderdale woman disappeared from her apartment in Madrid, murdered by her husband, David, according to federal officials. Now, a civil complaint filed May 1 by her brother on behalf of her estate ties her 2024 murder to an elaborate real estate fraud allegedly orchestrated by her estranged husband.

For over a year, the complaint argues, David Knezevich and over a dozen other defendants, including a Boca Raton real estate lawyer and a Fort Lauderdale closing agent company, worked to systematically drain Ana Knezevich of her equity in 10 properties the couple owned throughout the Fort Lauderdale area. Millions of dollars that should have gone to Ana Knezevich and her family instead went to her husband, funding his criminal defense team after he was charged with kidnapping and murdering her, according to the complaint. Her estate still has not received any of that money.

“This action arises out of one of the most brazen frauds ever perpetrated in a domestic real estate context,” David Di Pietro, the attorney representing Ana Knezevich’s family, wrote in the complaint. “An attorney-facilitated, coordinated scheme by Ana Maria Knezevich’s husband, David Knezevich, and her own attorney, Defendant Brooke Nicole Estren, to strip the marital estate of nearly $6 million of equity through ten fraudulent real estate transactions, followed by David Knezevich’s kidnapping and murder of Ana Maria Knezevich to prevent her discovery of the scheme.”

The day Ana Knezevich disappeared, David had arrived at her apartment in Madrid, spray-painted the surveillance cameras and left with a suitcase, according to authorites. He was charged with murder, though her body — believed to be somewhere between Spain and Serbia — has never been found. Knezevich committed suicide in federal prison last year, abruptly ending the criminal case.

The original civil complaint was filed in January of last year by Ana Knezevich’s brother, Felipe Henao, on behalf of her estate, followed by three other amended complaints that are not publicly available. The recent amended complaint, which is public, names 16 defendants, including David Knezevich’s own criminal defense attorneys’ firms.

Altogether, the defendants now include:

• Brooke Estren, a Boca Raton real estate lawyer, and her law firm Estren & Associates.
• AIM Partners, a limited-liability company, its manager Ivan Miatselitsa and his wife, Anastasiya Miatselitsa.
• Elite Title, a Fort Lauderdale closing agent company, and its manager, Yadiel Huet.
• Vera Capital, an LLC run by Huet’s aunt, Yaremis Vera, listed as a buyer.
• Real Title Insurance Agency, another Florida closing agent company.
• YHR Enterprises, another buyer.
• Peace of Mind Property Solutions, a California company, and its manager, Aaron Weitzman.
• The David Knezevich Legal Retainer Trust, a trust established by David Knezevich to pay his criminal defense attorneys.
• Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough and Sale Weintraub,  two law firms that provided criminal defense to Knezevich.

Ana and David Knezevich married in 2011. They had gone into business together prior to their separation, Henao said. At first, David Knezevich’s sister provided accounting for his IT company. Then the married couple started their real estate business, eventually owning approximately 15 different properties together in Fort Lauderdale, Dania Beach, Oakland Park and Pompano Beach, with over $8 million in equity. They rented many of the properties as Airbnbs. Ana’s mother had moved to the U.S from Colombia and also worked for their real estate company, cleaning and managing the houses.

Beginning in October 2023, over a year before Ana’s disappearance, David Knezevich began the first of 10 “red flag” real estate deals, selling properties that the couple either owned together or that should have been marital assets in their impending divorce and then taking the profits for himself or splitting them with the buyers in secret side deals, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit argues that Estren, the Boca Raton real estate lawyer, claimed to represent Ana Knezevich but was secretly working for David Knezevich.

The buyers — AIM Partners, Vera Capital and YHR Enterprises — were limited-liability companies affiliated with David, according to the complaint. In most of the deals, the buyer would take out a real mortgage to pay for the property, as well as a second mortgage, issued by David Knezevich himself, which appeared to cover the remaining cost of the property as part of a seller-financing arrangement.

Following each sale, the closing agents would secretly divert the proceeds from the real mortgage to David Knezevich or others affiliated with the fraud, the complaint says, while Ana Knezevich received nothing. The second mortgage, meanwhile, “existed solely to paper over the fact that DK had in fact already received most of the equity in cash,” the complaint said. The fraud ultimately stripped Ana Knezevich of her rightful share of approximately $6 million in equity, according to the complaint.

Just after 10:30 a.m. Feb. 2, 2024, Ana Knezevich signed the ninth deal, for a $900,000 home on 1531 NE 35th St. in Oakland Park. The deed identified her as the sole owner of the home, according to the complaint, compared to others that identified David Knezevich or the two jointly. She never received the money.

Hours later, David Knezevich arrived at her apartment in Spain, kidnapped and murdered her, according to federal prosecutors.

Two months after her disappearance, a 10th “red flag” deal closed in April, according to the lawsuit, selling the Fort Lauderdale home where Ana Knezevich’s mother was living.

David Knezevich was arrested the following month on federal kidnapping charges and later charged with murder.

He then began using the money he had obtained from the real estate sales to pay for his criminal defense, according to the complaint. While awaiting his trial in federal prison and with the help of his criminal defense attorneys, Jayne Weintraub and Christopher Cavallo, he established a trust using the money obtained from the alleged fraud that designated the attorneys as the sole recipients.

Weintraub’s and Cavallo’s law firms are defendants in the lawsuit, but the two attorneys have not been sued individually.

David Knezevich also reassigned the “sham” second mortgages to the trust, making it appear on paper that the buyers of the homes owed the trust almost $4 million, according to the complaint.

The criminal defense firms “cannot be described as innocent,” the complaint states, alleging that both firms should have known the trust they established relied on money stolen from Ana Knezevich.

Henao is now seeking $5.7 million in damages and joint and several liability against all of the defendants, which would allow him to collect full damages from any individual party.

The alleged fraud is “highly unusual,” said Di Pietro, his attorney, both because of how many people were involved, and the fact that it continued even after Ana Knezevich’s death.

“So many people along the way should’ve known what was going on,” Di Pietro said. “Instead of stopping it or not getting involved in it, they participated both pre-murder, and then, more egregiously, post-murder.”

Brian Kopelowitz, the attorney representing Estren, the Boca Raton real estate attorney, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel in an emailed statement that the lawsuit against his client is “frivolous.”

“Ms. Estren has zero culpability, as she was not even the closing agent involved in these transactions,” he said.

Max Soren, an attorney representing Real Title, said in an email that “we categorically deny the allegations.”

Weintraub and Cavallo did not respond to the Sun Sentinel’s emailed requests for comment. Attorneys representing the other defendants also did not return emails seeking comment. Several previously have filed motions to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that Henao failed to make specific claims and that they were doing their routine duties as part of a real estate transaction. None have filed a response yet to the most recent amended complaint.

Last month, the FBI announced that it was offering a $25,000 reward for any information about Ana Knezevich’s remains. The agency believes they were disposed of somewhere along a specific route from Spain to Serbia, where David Knezevich is originally from. Authorities say that he rented a car, then drove from Serbia to Spain in order to commit the murder. A necklace and journal that belonged to Ana Knezevich are still missing from her apartment.

Over the two years since his sister’s death, Henao said he and his family have tried to move forward with their lives. He had a son a few months after David Knezevich was arrested; the boy is now almost 2 years old. He gives his grandmother something to look forward to after her daughter’s death, Henao told the Sun Sentinel.

For the family, the lawsuit isn’t just about money.

“My mom doesn’t have a daughter anymore,” Henao said. “I don’t have a sister anymore. My son was never able to meet his aunt, his only aunt on my side of the family. At some point it’s just got to stop being about lawsuits and real estate and just be that a life was lost, and the people who were involved in all of this need to be held accountable.”