Victim in Pooh Shiesty shooting case, Instagram model among 8 indicted in Miami fraud case

One year ago, Brandon Cooper was shot in the butt during what police say was a robbery in a Bay Harbor Island hotel that resulted in the arrest of high-profile rapper Pooh Shiesty. He’s slated to eventually testify against the rapper but this week Cooper also found himself behind bars, accused of taking part in an elaborate bank-fraud scheme.

Cooper, 28, was one of eight suspects — including Ana Figueroa, 22, an Instagram “fashion model” with over 45,000 followers — arrested by federal authorities for allegedly forging checks, then withdrawing money from the accounts of unsuspecting businesses and people.

The suspects are all in their 20s and early 30s, some of whose Instagram pages show them living a hard-partying Miami lifestyle: posing with exotic cars, preening with bling and flashing wads of cash.

Those indicted: Cooper; Figueroa; John Anthony Perez, 23; Rene Ripes III, 22; Carlo Luvara Escobar, 26; Clifton Taylor, 33; Edwin Castillo, 23; and Christopher Salermo, 30. All hail from Miami-Dade County.

Cooper’s defense attorney, Robert Trachman, could not be immediately reached for comment.

The eight defendants, most of whom were arrested Wednesday, are charged with a bank fraud conspiracy, money laundering and identity theft. In court documents, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations agents say they found the suspects stole checking accounts and routing numbers belonging to legitimate corporations and people in South Florida and Virginia between January and July 2019.

The defendants are accused of creating fraudulent checks with the stolen information, forging victims’ signatures on those checks, and depositing them into new bank accounts under their names, according to an indictment. After the checks cleared, but before the financial institutions discovered the fraud, the defendants withdrew the money from their bank accounts for personal gain, according to the indictment filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kurt Lunkenheimer.

The indictment doesn’t spell out the financial magnitude of the alleged bank fraud, but it appears to be in the tens of thousands of dollars based on account transactions and cash withdrawals listed in the document.

All eight defendants are charged with aggravated identity theft, which carries a mandatory minimum of two years in prison on top of any other punishment if they’re convicted.

Miami defense attorney Humberto Dominguez, who is representing two of the defendants, Figueroa and Ripes, said most of the group’s members are in their 20s.

“This is typically not what you would expect from kids this age,” Dominguez said, noting the nature of the alleged financial crime. “These are regular college-type kids.”

Cooper has been in the news before, although his name had not been publicized.

He and another man, according to law enforcement, arranged to sell marijuana and “high-end athletic sneakers” to Pooh Shiesty, whose real name is Lontrell Williams. According to court documents, Williams and another man, Bobby Brown, shot Cooper and his cohort while robbing them of the drugs and the shoes during a meeting in Bay Harbor Islands.

Williams was first charged in Miami-Dade state court, but the case was later taken over by the feds. Williams and Brown are awaiting trial.

How Cooper’s arrest in the bank fraud case will affect the robbery prosecution remains unclear. Williams’ defense attorney, Saam Zangeneh, declined comment on Thursday.