MIAMI — Ana Maria Nunez, a Miami-Dade woman with a lengthy history of fraud in South Florida, was convicted of four felony charges after prosecutors accused her of swindling hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Doral senior as she suffered from terminal cancer.
Jurors deliberated Thursday afternoon and rendered their verdict about two hours later, convicting her on all four counts, including charges of exploiting the elderly, theft and fraud.
Before the case headed to a jury, the defense called one witness on Thursday. Nunez, 68, was not one of them; she declined to testify in her own defense.
“I think my attorneys have done a great job,” she said. “Everything is in the open in the record.”
With 16 felony convictions already on her record, Nunez has now been convicted of four more after authorities said she stole more than $430,000 from 78-year-old Zoraida Economopoulos before she died of bladder cancer.
The defense’s only witness was a woman who worked as Economopoulos’ caretaker for the last two months of her life.
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Nunez’s attorneys called into question just how close the victim’s own family really was to her.
“I worked for Miss Zoraida. I interviewed with her and asked if she had kids” the woman said. “She said she had no one.”
Nunez is accused of plotting with her son, Pablo Figueroa, to befriend the victim and steal from her.
“The deed was prepared by Pablo Figueroa’s girlfriend, Cassandra Campos,” prosecutor Stacy Cleveland said. “Pablo was in the hospital calling Miss Economopoulos ‘mom’ and helping ingratiate his actual mother to her.”
Nunez, prosecutors said, posed as the dying senior’s daughter to obtain power of attorney and to steal from her.
“She used the POA to knowingly to sign this document and give herself Zoraida’s house,” Cleveland said.
But Nunez’s attorneys argued that she was a real friend who only carried out Economopoulos’ wishes.
“You heard she was devastated. Does a fraudster become devastated when their victim dies?” defense attorney Richard Gregg asked. “Not a single piece of evidence shows the intent Zoraida has with what to do with her estate.”
Nunez still faces legal peril in other cases, including one stemming from a 2024 arrest.
In that case, she’s accused of bilking a Miami barbershop owner out of six figures after promising him returns in an investment involving the sale of satellites to China. Police said it was all bogus.
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