After a 2016 partnership with Pincho Factory restaurants in South Florida, former NFL linebacker and Hurricanes star Jonathan Vilma is suing the company over a shady business partnership and murder cover-up allegation.
Originally, the business pact called for the restaurant chain to establish five locations selling their trademark sizzling latin kabobs. Fast forward two years later, the company has delivered one fully built restaurant, another still under construction and shaky plans to complete the remaining three.
Here are more details from the Miami Herald.
Vilma is suing the chain, claiming they engaged in shady business practices to doom his venture. Oh, and he says they neglected to tell him that one of the company’s partners was suspected of bankrolling his father — who was wanted for murder and on the run overseas until his capture this week.
“Had Vilma known of the alleged criminal conduct of one of the key individuals [in the business], especially conduct relating to murder, he would not have associated himself with [Pincho Factory],” according to the lawsuit filed in Miami-Dade circuit court this month. In the lawsuit, Vilma asks for damages for “substantial loss of time and money” he’s suffered dealing with the company in trying to find suitable locations for the franchises; the company later terminated its franchise agreements for all but the Brickell location.
A Pincho Factory lawyer shot back, saying the the claim about the fugitive father was nothing more than a “salacious subplot” included in the lawsuit to tarnish the chain, which didn’t know about the criminal investigation until it appeared in the Miami Herald earlier this year.
Yaddiel Marin, one of the company’s original partners and investors is believed by authorities to be involved in an Angela Valdes inspired murder cover-up involving his father and his wife’s lover.
Marin, 32, is the son of Manuel Marin, who ran several Presidente Supermarket locations until he fled the country for Spain in June 2011. Authorities say Manuel Marin masterminded and took part in the murder of his wife’s secret lover, Camilo Salazar, whose body was discovered in a rural area near the Everglades in June 2011. Salazar had been severely beaten, his throat slit, his genitals torched.
The State Attorney’s Office in April charged Manuel Marin, along with three others, including two former South Florida mixed-martial arts fighters. Prosecutors are seeking to extradite Manuel Marin — Spanish authorities arrested him late on Tuesday in Madrid, local media reported.
Prosecutors have said in court that they believe Yaddiel Marin bankrolled his father, paying $10,000 a month to support his dad’s younger children. In March, prosecutors say he arranged to have his younger siblings and their mother visit Manuel Marin at a resort in Cuba. Vilma felt blindsided by the allegations when he read about them in the Miami Herald, his lawyers wrote in the lawsuit. The Pincho Factory has insisted that Yaddiel Marin’s role in the company is minimal. “Yaddiel Marin was an early investor but has no day-to-day involvement in our business,” Pincho Factory’s CEO, Nedal Ahmad, wrote to the Miami Herald in May.
Vilma has chosen not to include the juicy murder allegations in his lawsuit and instead has focused on the breach of contract. The law suit contends the company intentionally ran subpar restaurants with giant quality concerns.
