Auto designers to the stars feuded for years, until one got shot in his Miami-area driveway

Fifteen years ago, Rolando Ramirez and Alex Vega competed against each other in the rough-and-tumble business of customizing high-end cars for sports celebrities and other flashy clients, until they had a falling out over a debt that Vega owed to Ramirez.

To resolve their $92,000 dispute, Vega closed his business in Kendall, turned over his assets to Ramirez and went to work for him in Doral, but their truce would not last long. Soon they were fighting in court over money, customers and a non-compete agreement. Their lawsuit was settled in 2012, though not amicably.

Seven years later, Vega wound up nearly dead with three bullet wounds after a hit man ambushed him as he pulled into his Kendale Lakes driveway in his black Range Rover. In late August 2019, Vega told Miami-Dade police detectives while he was being treated at Kendall Regional Hospital that he believed the prime suspect behind the attack was Ramirez, saying his ex-business partner “threatened to kill” Vega in 2011, according to an incident report.

Now Ramirez, the owner of Exclusive Motoring Worldwide, is being held at a federal lock-up in Miami on charges of conspiring with other associates in the August 2019 murder-for-hire plot to kill Vega. The shooter and getaway driver, who at first were mum about the mastermind behind the hit on Vega, were convicted last year and sentenced to 35 and 50 years, respectively. As cooperating witnesses for the feds, they have since turned against Ramirez, 50, who has pleaded not guilty to charges that carry up to life in prison.

Detains Ramirez, former UM football player

Ramirez, who as a boy came to Miami from Cuba during the 1980 Mariel boatlift, was ordered detained before trial on Friday by a magistrate judge who found him to be a danger to the community because of his 15 prior convictions and possession of firearms in his home.

Magistrate Judge Lisette Reid also detained a co-defendant, Rasheed “Fresh” Ali, 38, a former University of Miami football player, for the same reason, noting he had weapons and marijuana in his Pinecrest home upon his arrest.

But the judge allowed another defendant, Tamrat “Shifta” Mason, a California music producer and recording artist charged only with obstruction of justice, to be released on bond. He will be required to wear an electronic ankle and can only travel between his home and California and South Florida.

Marc Anthony, Usain Bolt are clients

Absent from Friday’s detention hearing was Vega. He’s the owner of The Auto Firm, a Kendall business that designs sports-car renovations for many celebrities, including Grammy-winning singer Marc Anthony, rapper Rick Ross and Jamaican Olympic gold medal sprinter Usain Bolt, to name a few. Vega and Anthony have become good friends in recent years as Vega renovated several of the star’s cars. Vega was also featured in a 2017 reality TV series called “The Auto Firm with Alex Vega.”

During the detention hearing on Friday, federal prosecutor Michael Gilfarb said Vega fingered Ramirez as “most likely the one who wanted him dead.”

“From his hospital bed the victim [Vega] named Ramirez as the primary suspect in the shooting,” Gilfarb said during the five-hour hearing. “The reason he named him is because Ramirez sued him in federal court in what the pleadings demonstrate was a bitter business dispute.”

Gilfarb said Ramirez was “obsessed and full of rage” over his business rival, Vega.

Gilfarb said investigators, including Miami-Dade police and FBI agents, discovered a cash payment to the getaway driver in the Vega shooting that led them to Ramirez, Ali and Mason, who communicated on “burner” cell phones to hide their tracks.

He noted that Ramirez and Ali were close friends, and that Ali and Mason were both friends and partners in Timeless Entertainment. He also accused both Ali and Mason of dealing in marijuana, though neither has been convicted of a crime despite multiple arrests.

Fellow prosecutor Abbie Waxman argued that all three defendants were a “danger to the community,” highlighting Vega’s continued sense of vulnerability since the shooting at his home.

“The court can see this gallery is packed with people who support the three defendants,” Waxman told the judge, pointing out that Vega was absent “because of the fear.”

Ramirez’s defense attorneys, Philip Reizenstein and David Kubiliun, sought to deflate the prosecution’s case against their client, saying that Vega had numerous enemies — not just Ramirez. They also said so much time had passed between the settlement of the legal dispute between Ramirez and Vega and the shooting at Vega’s home that it was illogical that Ramirez would still be “obsessed and full of rage” over a “lawsuit that was resolved some 3,000 days before the shooting.”

“Sure, he doesn’t like Vega, but a lot of people don’t like Vega,” Kubilian argued. “There’s no direct evidence he was involved.”

Concerns over pot, weapons found in home

During the detention hearing, however, FBI special agent Ryan Dreibelbis said that although there may be several suspects in the Vega shooting, Ramirez was the only one who had a relationship with the getaway driver.

The agent said a witness told the FBI that “Mr. Ramirez hated the victim and called the victim nasty names,” and that after the shooting, Ramirez “talked about Vega’s clients being up for grabs.”

“There is objective black-and-white evidence ... of Mr. Ramirez’s negative feelings towards this victim [Vega],” Waxman, the prosecutor, said.

Waxman also argued that Ali, the former UM football player, was “connected to the getaway driver” in Vega’s shooting and was the “middle man” between Ramirez and the driver.

Waxman accused Ali, who won a $5 million settlement after being badly injured by a United Parcel Service driver in 2013, of dealing marijuana and keeping packages of pot along with four firearms in his home. She said he has had no income in recent years yet he owns a Rolls Royce and a Bentley.

“Where does the court believe this money is coming from?” Waxman said.

Ali’s defense attorneys, Joseph Nascimento and Dave Raben, tried to portray him as a family man who doted on his two children and was still close to his ex-wife, who was in the courtroom at Friday’s hearing. They also said Ali volunteered a lot of time to youth sports and has invested some of his money in an affordable housing project in Florida.

But Reid, the magistrate judge, expressed concern about the marijuana and weapons found in his home, along with several drug-trafficking arrests in his past despite the lack of convictions.

Reid showed more sympathy for Mason, 39, the Timeless music producer and recording artist, who has not been accused of conspiring with Ramirez and Ali in the murder-for-hire case — only obstruction of justice.

His defense attorney, Dustin Tischler, questioned the basis for the obstruction case, saying “there’s a lack of evidence” that Mason misled investigators. He also questioned the relevance of Mason putting several hundred dollars into the commissary account of his friend, the getaway driver in the shooting, at the Federal Detention Center, challenging the prosecution’s claim that he was trying to buy his silence.

FBI raid of body shop

Tischler said Mason wasn’t in the country when the Vega shooting occurred in 2019, and that he flew from California to South Florida to surrender to authorities after he learned that Ali and Ramirez were arrested earlier this month. The FBI raided Ramirez’s body shop, Doral Collision, on Aug. 16.

A federal grand jury charged Ramirez and Ali with solicitation to commit a crime of violence, stalking, conspiracy to use and carry a firearm during a crime of violence, discharge of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, murder-for-hire conspiracy, murder for hire and obstruction of justice. Each faces life in prison if convicted.

The indictment accuses Ramirez and Ali of recruiting two men to carry out the hit on Vega: Jaime Serrano and Julian Jimenez. They flew from New York to Miami on an American Airlines flight on Aug. 21, 2019, rented a blue Nissan Rogue and stalked Vega, according to court records.

Six days later, in the early evening of Aug. 27, Serrano drove Jimenez in the Nissan to Vega’s Kendale Lakes home.

Eight shots fired in Kendale Lakes driveway

Jimenez, wearing a surgical mask and gloves and carrying a gun that Serrano gave to him after they had arrived in Miami, got out of the front passenger seat, approached Vega in his car and started shooting, according to a statement filed with Jimenez’s plea deal. He fired eight shots, including three that struck Vega.

A witness told FBI agents that the men were offered $60,000 to carry out the hit, though that has never been confirmed, Jimenez’s attorney, federal public defender Abigail Becker, said at his sentencing.

Jimenez, 27, pleaded guilty to his part in the murder attempt and a judge sentenced him to 35 years in prison in November. He’s the son of Marcos Jimenez — Marc Anthony’s sound engineer and occasional property manager, according to court documents

U.S. District Judge Roy Altman sentenced Serrano, 46, who was convicted at trial of arranging the shooting and the trip from New York to South Florida to carry it out, to 50 years in prison.

A jury determined Serrano was not the shooter, but played an important part in planning the operation — including buying the airline tickets from New York to Miami, renting cars in Florida, and obtaining the .40 caliber handgun that Jimenez used to shoot Vega.

Although he didn’t pull the trigger, Altman repeatedly referred to him as “the architect” of the plot to murder Vega during his sentencing hearing.

Altman also said Serrano was more “connected to the people who wanted Mr. Vega dead.” Neither Serrano nor Jimenez ever gave up who commissioned the hit on Vega.

Read More: Second man gets 50 years for role in hit attempt on famous Miami car designer to the stars

Miami Herald staff writer David Goodhue contributed to this story.