Cesar Pina, the New Jersey real estate influencer known as Flipping NJ, pleaded guilty Oct. 22 in federal court in Newark to wire fraud, money laundering conspiracy and two bribery counts. Sentencing is set for March 10, 2027, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for New Jersey said.
Pina, 48, of Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, entered the plea before U.S. District Judge Madeline Cox Arleo. His lawyer is Gerald Krovatin of Newark. The case drew wide attention in hip-hop media because prosecutors say Pina built his following in part through real estate seminars with a well-known disc jockey and radio personality. Prosecutors have not named that person.
What Cesar Pina Pleaded Guilty to
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Pina pleaded to a four-count superseding information. The counts are wire fraud, money laundering conspiracy, bribery concerning programs that receive federal funds and Travel Act bribery, which covers using interstate commerce to carry out state-law bribery.
The office said the first two counts each carry up to 20 years in prison. It listed a maximum of 10 years for the federal-programs bribery count and five years for the Travel Act count. U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer said Pina’s conduct “robbed investors of their life savings”, helped facilitate drug trafficking and undermined confidence in elected officials. The release did not include a statement from Pina or his lawyer.
How the Plea Compares with the Indictment
A grand jury indicted Pina on July 7, 2025 in Criminal No. 25-436. That indictment had six counts: two of wire fraud, one of money laundering conspiracy, two of money laundering and one of bribery. The U.S. Attorney’s Office’s July 2025 release listed a 20-year maximum for each fraud and laundering count and 10 years for bribery.
Adding those maximums gives 110 years for the six counts in the indictment. The four counts in the plea add up to 55 years. Both totals are calculations from the Justice Department’s listed maximums, not sentences a judge is likely to impose. Sentencing will be 139 days after the plea, and the plea came 472 days after the indictment and 1,099 days after Pina’s arrest on a wire fraud complaint on Oct. 19, 2023, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s announcement. Those day counts are also calculations from the cited dates.
The two money laundering counts in the indictment, tied to Dec. 20 and Dec. 27, 2022, involved property that a person working at the direction of law enforcement represented as drug proceeds. The October 2026 release does not list those counts separately, and it does not mention forfeiture, which the indictment sought for property tied to the fraud, bribery and laundering counts without stating a dollar amount.
The Returns Investors were Promised
The indictment describes a scheme that ran from about 2017 through 2024. It alleges Pina told investors he owned “thousands of properties” in multiple states and had relationships with various celebrities, and that he used social media to reach hundreds of thousands of followers. It alleges he hid that he already owned or had mortgaged some of the properties and that other investors were funding them.
The Justice Department’s 2025 and 2026 releases say Pina often promised returns of 30% or more within four to five months. The Drug Enforcement Administration’s 2023 announcement described promised returns of 20% to 45% within five months. The indictment’s examples fit the 30% figure. In August 2022, it says, one investor signed a contract for about $100,000 on a property on Manchester Avenue in Paterson, with about $30,000 in interest due within five months. A rate of 30% over five months works out to 72% a year in simple terms, a calculation that ignores compounding.
The same investor signed a second contract that month for $250,000 on a property on Park Avenue in Paterson, with about $75,000 in interest. The indictment says Pina bought that property through a company called Whairhouse LLC on Nov. 14, 2018, for about $225,000. The investor’s contract was $25,000 higher, or about 11%, than the purchase price, a calculation from the two figures. The indictment does not say what the property cost to renovate or what Pina did with the difference.
A second investor signed a contract in October 2022 for about $400,000 covering the Manchester Avenue property and one other, with about $120,000 in interest, and wired about that amount. The indictment says the first investor wired about $600,000 in August 2022 for the Manchester and Park Avenue properties and one more. Pina bought Manchester Avenue on April 4, 2019, for about $140,000, according to the indictment. By the indictment’s account, money from two investors was pledged to the same house.
The indictment alleges Pina paid earlier investors with later investors’ money in what it calls a Ponzi-like manner and spent investor funds on luxury clothing, vacations, luxury vehicles and beauty supplies. It says dozens of victims have not been repaid most or all of their principal and interest.
The Bribery Count and the Old School 5 Project
The bribery count covers about 2019 through 2022 and involves a Paterson local official who was also a licensed real estate agent. The indictment does not name the official. It alleges Pina made about $50,000 in cash and check payments, sometimes through his office assistant, to influence zoning variance applications for a development called Old School 5 on Totowa Avenue. The applications sought approval to build a 60-unit apartment complex. At $50,000, the alleged payments equal about $833 per planned unit, a calculation from the two figures. The
indictment says the official texted Pina in March 2021 that he was on the zoning board’s March 11 agenda, and texted again in late July 2022 that the official had already spoken with the chairman about his appointment. The board was scheduled to hear the applications on Aug. 4, 2022. The indictment says the seven-member board, which has two alternates, has heard the applications but has not approved them.
It also alleges Pina hired the official as the real estate agent on a February 2022 sale of a property owned by his company and that the official deposited a commission check for about $18,132 on March 7, 2022. Paterson received more than $10,000 in federal benefits in the relevant years, which the indictment cites to bring the case under the federal-programs bribery law.
Where DJ Envy Appears in the Case
The Justice Department’s 2023 and 2025 releases and the indictment refer only to an unnamed celebrity disc jockey and radio personality who partnered with Pina on seminars. The indictment calls this person Individual-1, and none of the releases names a co-defendant.
NPR reported in its own interviews in October 2023 that at least nine claimants, represented by attorney Alexander Schachtel, said they were drawn into real estate investments with Pina because of the endorsement of radio host DJ Envy, and the claimants named both men as defendants. NPR reported that Envy had not been charged.
Envy’s attorney, Massimo D’Angelo, told NPR that Envy invested $500,000 with Pina and never saw a return and described him as a victim. Envy said on “The Breakfast Club” that if Pina took money, he “wasn’t privy to it”, according to NPR. The Justice Department’s October 2026 release includes no comment from Envy and does not describe any civil case.
What Happens Next
Arleo will set Pina’s sentence on March 10, 2027. The statutory maximums are ceilings, and the release does not say what the government will recommend. The agencies that investigated include the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation, with help from the Franklin Lakes Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Carolyn Silane, Edeli Rivera, Aaron Webman and Marko Pesce are prosecuting the case.
