August 2013 – A business owned by Miami nightclub owner Clive Seecomar has been saddled with a judgment of $60 million for actions related to a cellular telephone recycling business. The judgment is based on activities occurring in 2008 around the time that Seecomar was Miami’s man- of-the-hour after revitalizing the trendy Karu & Y nightclub in the Overtown neighborhood. The club hosted celebrities such Paris Hilton, rappers Flo Rida and P. Diddy and Miami Heat basketball star Lebron James.
On April 12, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Spencer Eig entered the judgment against Seecomar’s company, Cell Solutions International, Inc., in favor of the California-based Brix Group, a client of Podhurst Orseck attorney John Gravante III. The award reflects a $20 million investment recovery by the Brix Group in Cell Solutions, as well as $40 million in punitive damages.
In the suit, filed in March of 2009, the Brix Group alleged that Seecomar absconded with investment funds and operated a Ponzi scheme through his company which allegedly bought used cellular phones, refurbished them and sold them in the Latin American market. Seecomar approached Brix in 2007 with the business proposal. In 2008, the companies with which Cell Solutions was dealing fell in arrears on payments and Brix Group founder Harry Brix began to suspect a fraud by early 2009, according to the suit.
Much of Seecomar’s assets are unaccounted for but some of the money went to Karu & Y, which closed its doors in 2009 after Seecomar sunk tens of millions of dollars into the nightclub. The extravagant 42,000-square-foot property included a $1 million sound system, waterfalls and a Dale Chihuly chandelier.
Podhurst attorney John Gravante III said that he hopes the company, now run by Brix’s son since Harry Brix passed away, will recover at least some of its money in the judgment.
