A Los Angeles woman whose class action lawsuit against Grant Cardone was tossed out two years ago has another shot at making her case.
Last week, a panel of three California U.S. appeals court judges reversed an October 2023 ruling that dismissed Christine Pino’s complaint against Cardone, his Aventura-based Cardone Capital and two real estate funds. In 2020, Pino’s late father, Luis Pino, sued Cardone and his entities, alleging that the social media celebrity misled investors by allegedly over-promising investor returns, downplaying their financial liability and not fully disclosing the fees he collected. Christine Pino was named the new plaintiff in an amended lawsuit after her father died
Cardone is a multifamily syndicator who sells minority interests in his properties through crowdfunding.
Luis Pino, who resided in Inglewood, invested a total of $10,000 in the two funds named in the complaint, which was filed in Los Angeles federal court. Pino’s attorneys Marc Seltzer and Raj Mathur did not respond to requests for comment.
In a statement, Cardone told The Real Deal that before Pino died he refused Cardone’s offer to return his $10,000 and said that he was “happy with it.”
“It is obvious to any savvy person that this is a legal attempt to get a monetary settlement from me, believing I will tap out to make negative publicity go away,” Cardone said. “There has been no financial damage and the investment is outperforming our objectives. I have spent millions to defend this frivolous lawsuit over a $10,000 investment and will continue to do so. Cardone Capital has one of the best performance records in the industry.”
Cardone also claimed his firm has distributed $100 million to its investors in the past 12 months, including $20 million this month. The average cash distribution for investors is almost 7 percent, Cardone added.
“During a time when syndicators have failed [and] are returning assets to lenders, and while REITs struggle with distributions and redemptions, Cardone Capital continues to make monthly and quarterly distributions,” Cardone said. “We are on track to exceed all expectations previously targeted.”
The appeals court panel concluded that Christine Pino had sufficiently stated her claim that Cardone “made opinion statements that he subjectively disbelieved and omitted material facts about the internal rate of return and distribution projections for real estate investment funds.”
The three judges also ruled Christine Pino’s claim that Cardone’s failure to disclose a letter from the Securities and Exchange Commission warning him to remove the projected rates of return and distributions from his offering memos counted as a material omission.
Cardone regularly recruits small investors via his social media accounts, which have more than 10 million followers combined. He sells minority shares in properties and Bitcoin owned by Cardone Capital and its affiliates. His firm’s real estate portfolio is worth $5 billion, comprising 14,000 apartments and two office properties spanning more than 500,000 square feet, according to Cardone Capital.
Recently, a Cardone affiliate submitted a $230 million stalking horse bid for Penn-Florida Companies’ 101 Via Mizner in Boca Raton. The 366-unit multifamily project’s ownership entity filed for bankruptcy protection in January.