A mother and daughter from Hialeah are facing charges after they scammed a doctor out of nearly $500,000, police said.
Vanesa Diaz, 22, was arrested Tuesday on charges of grand theft and organized fraud while her mother, 60-year-old Zoila Abdal, was arrested on an accessory after the fact charge, Hialeah Police said.
According to arrest reports, Diaz went to Dr. Scott Halperin in December, claiming she had a lawsuit pending against General Motors and needed to pay a lawyer to represent her.
Diaz, who had worked as a secretary for Halperin back in 2007, promised him a return of $1.5 million if he helped pay for the lawyer, the reports said.
"She says 'look, I've got a multi-million dollar lawsuit against General Motors because my car blew up years ago and I could make millions of dollars out of this but the attorney wants to charge me money to take my case, can you help me with that? Once I win, you're gonna get plenty of money back and I'll be a millionaire,'" Hialeah Police spokesman Carl Zogby said.
Halperin initially withdrew $14,000 to give Diaz, but she kept asking for more. In January, Halperin withdrew more than $256,000 to give to Diaz, the reports said.
Halperin became suspicious and started asking for official papers, including receipts and lawyer contracts, the report said. In response, Diaz texted him a fake check for $295,000 that had been written out to her with "insurance settlement" on the memo line, the reports said.
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Diaz also gave Halperin a letter she claimed was from her attorney that said Halperin would be paid $1.95 million for helping her, the reports said.
Halperin withdrew another $178,000 to give Diaz in February, and they continued to communicate by text with Halperin repeatedly asking for some of the funds that were promised to him, the reports said.
Halperin lost about $464,000 before the scheme was stopped, the reports said. NBC 6 reached out to Halperin Wednesday but he declined to comment.
Diaz later told police and state attorneys that her mother "was the mastermind of this scheme," the reports said. She said Abdal would coach her on things to say to the victim to get the money, the reports said.
Diaz said she gave most of the money to her mother and didn't know what her mother had done with it, the reports said.
"Nobody knows where the money is, cause he gave it to her in cash and she didn't deposit it in any account, but her and her mom are going to jail for a long time," Zogby said.
Both women were behind bars Wednesday, jail records showed. Attorney information wasn't immediately available.
