Miami developer Rishi Kapoor, who once had the city's mayor on his payroll, is headed to prison for more than a decade after pleading guilty to an $89M fraud scheme in which he used investor funds for personal luxuries.

U.S. District Court Judge Michael Moore sentenced the 42-year-old founder of Location Ventures to 11 years and four months in prison on Aug. 27 after Kapoor pleaded guilty to money laundering and payroll tax conspiracy.

"Cumulatively, I have sinned before my God to such an extent that I came to believe my death would be better than my life," Kapoor wrote in an Aug. 24 letter to the judge, the Miami Herald reported. "I am ashamed of myself, and I have carried that shame every minute of every day since the collapse of my company in July 2023.”

Kapoor raised more than $85M from investors for promised real estate projects in Coral Gables, Coconut Grove, Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale. He was charged and arrested in March on a 37-count indictment, where he was accused of using investor money to purchase luxury items.

The Department of Justice claimed that Kapoor deceived escrow agents to release deposits that condo buyers had made for preconstruction projects in Miami Beach and Coconut Grove and misrepresented his personal financial contribution to the company. He told investors he put $13M into the projects but instead only contributed half of that amount.

The University of Miami alumnus pleaded guilty to two counts in the indictment in May, including money laundering after transferring $820,559 to his personal account to buy a $5M, 68-foot yacht in 2022, which was seized, and a $5.9M luxury home in Coral Gables. He also admitted to stealing $10.6M worth of condo deposits from 30 buyers of failed condo projects in Coconut Grove, Coral Gables and Miami Beach.

Kapoor also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the U.S., by failing to pay employees' payroll taxes to the IRS between 2020 and 2022, and money laundering.

The developer agreed to forfeit the $821K and a platinum ring with a $28K down payment as part of the plea deal. Prosecutors claim that he owes more than $70M to his real estate company's investors and outstanding taxes to the IRS. A restitution hearing has been scheduled for November.

Location Ventures and its subsidiary, Urbin, had a $500M development portfolio, including boutique condos, coworking and coliving concepts, multifamily projects and single-family homes, in 2020. But by 2023, the companies' assets were ensnared in lawsuits as Kapoor became the subject of local and federal investigations.

Kapoor had hired then-Miami Mayor Francis Suarez as a consultant for Urbin for $10K a month while the company developed a Coconut Grove project and paid him at least $170K over two years, the Herald uncovered in 2024. Suarez has not been accused of any wrongdoing. Miami's "weak mayor" system allows the mayor to work in the private sector since the position doesn't have a vote on the city council.

In the summer of 2023, Kapoor resigned from his position as CEO amid allegations that he was misappropriating investor funds.

The Securities and Exchange Commission in 2024 sued Kapoor for fraud, claiming that he, Location Ventures, Urbin and 20 other related entities had misappropriated over $93M in investor capital. They settled with a consent decree, without Kapoor admitting to or denying wrongdoing and with him agreeing to pay a future cash judgment.

The sentencing was in line with what the prosecution recommended, though Kapoor's attorneys had hoped for a sentence of just more than 10 years, the Herald reported.

In the letter where Kapoor admitted to defrauding investors to the judge, he labeled himself as "a deeply flawed CEO and an even worse steward of the funds entrusted to me," the Herald reported.

“Those are my acts, and I fully accept responsibility for my crimes without hesitation or excuse,” he wrote ahead of his sentencing.