How the FBI is now involved in embezzlement case against Champions Golf Academy manager
Jose Manuel Fernandez Del Puerto expressed optimism in October that he would receive leniency from 15th Judicial Circuit Court prosecutors in his embezzlement case.
Fernandez was arrested in March 2019 by North Myrtle Beach police, who accused the managing partner of Champions Golf Academy at Barefoot Resort of taking more than $2 million in construction funds from a resort project adjacent to the academy.
He was charged with breach of trust with fraudulent intent valued at $5,000 or more, and said he had a plan to pay back investors in the project.
That case was dismissed on May 13.
But he may now have to hope for leniency from a federal court.
The embezzlement accusation against Fernandez has become a federal case with his arrest Tuesday morning on charges levied by the FBI.
Fernandez was booked into J. Reuben Long Detention Center in Conway on FBI charges that include wire fraud, money laundering and money laundering conspiracy.
Fernandez, 46, made his first court appearance in the new federal case on Tuesday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Florence.
According to the FBI’s criminal complaint against Fernandez obtained by The Sun News, the agency was invited to look into the case by NMB police in March 2019, prior to Fernandez’s initial arrest.
The FBI complaint largely mirrors the NMB police report, accusing Fernandez of funneling approximately $2.2 million from the business accounts of a proposed Wyndham Gardens resort/hotel project that is near the former academy building on the expansive Barefoot Resort driving range.
Fernandez admitted to The Sun News in October that he did move approximately $2 million from the accounts to keep the struggling golf academy afloat. The academy needed the money, he said, and “it wasn’t being used.”
The FBI complaint stated that Fernandez also admitted in a March 2019 FBI interview that he transferred funds from the project to support the golf academy. The complaint adds that several investors from Mexico said they were unaware the funds were being moved.
15th Judicial Circuit Solicitor Jimmy Richardson said his case was dismissed because the investors were not cooperating.
“We knew of [the FBI’s] involvement, but it wasn’t so much to pass it on to the federal government, it was more about the victims not wanting to go through with our charges,” Richardson said. “I think once they got most of their money back they did not want to go forward with the charges against the defendant. Without the witnesses we could not prove a white-collar case.”
The Wyndham project began in 2014 and was to include a 138-room hotel and adjacent 20-unit multifamily and classroom building that could house students from the neighboring academy, but it has experienced financial setbacks and delays.
Fernandez said last year that a group of investors from Mexico formed under Olmeca Capital is 80 percent of Vermex Hotels LLC, which was established to own and operate the hotel, and Barefoot Resort owner Sammy Puglia is 20 percent of Vermex based mainly on his land ownership.
The FBI alleges Fernandez was the sole manager and had control of the two companies’ bank accounts, and money from the accounts was transferred into his wife’s bank account and also used to support the academy and pay off credit card debt from at least March 2015 to November 2017.
Fernandez told The Sun News in October that he was hoping for leniency from the court system because he guaranteed his project partners that they would be reimbursed through the sale of the golf academy building and sale or transfer of property he owns in Mexico.
The building and 1.73 acres that contains it at Barefoot Resort was sold for $950,000 in December to Golf Tourism Solutions, a technology and marketing agency that promotes the Myrtle Beach market.
“I’m taking the loss,” Fernandez said in October. “I put up some property of my own to the partners. The $2 million taken from the Olmeca account was mine, I brought it from Spain. I gave them property in Mexico as a guarantee.”
Fernandez said last year that an investor who was going to be the guarantor of a bank loan that was needed to finish construction backed out of the deal, and Olmeca was unable to secure a loan, stalling the project.
Fernandez is a Mexico native and national who has lived in Myrtle Beach for the past decade through an E2 Visa for foreign investors working in the U.S., he said.
Fernandez was trying to keep Champions Golf Academy alive this past school year without a home golf facility — students are housed at The Farm and attend classes at Risen Christ Christian Academy — but was down to two international students in the fall semester. He said he expected up to five students in the spring. The academy had social media posts as recently as late April.
The golf academy was known as the Greg Norman Champions Golf Academy for seven years before Norman stripped it of his name following Fernandez’s March 2019 arrest.
Fernandez, who was released on $100,000 bond a day after that arrest, was listed as still being incarcerated on Wednesday morning, though he was set to be released on a personal recognizance bond with conditions, according to court documents.
The former golf academy building is becoming the home of Golf Tourism Solutions’ Project Golf nonprofit initiative to grow the game locally.
This story was originally published May 27, 2020 at 12:53 PM.
