November 24, 2024
Members of AeroVanti may finally get answers where their tens of millions of dollars went during a court hearing scheduled for next month.
AeroVanti Founder and CEO Patrick Britton-Harr has been ordered to appear in court and explain where the money went.
According to the Business Observer, the judge presiding over the Justice Department’s case against Britton-Harr has ordered him to appear in court on July 31.
The government’s case against the private jet club executive alleges he defrauded Medicare via other companies he controlled.
The DOJ says Britton-Harr used at least some of those monies to launch AeroVanti in 2021.
His court date next month is unrelated to the collapsed private aviation membership program.
Prosecutors say Britton-Harr violated a previous court order by selling a house for $575,000 and failing to transfer the funds to the court.
In March, he was found in contempt of court, according to the business website.
The Business Observer reports, “An attorney, who has since withdrawn from the case, did send prosecutors an email (on) April 12 with three bank statements for a bank account in Britton-Harr’s wife’s name. The statements, prosecutors say, included multiple large wire transfers to unknown persons for unknown purposes.”
Britton-Harr has said he has no current bank accounts or financial resources.
In their filing, prosecutors say the defendant created “a myriad of shell companies and bank accounts to frustrate the tracking of his assets.”
Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander has said she wants “details of his current financial resources as well as any prior dissipation of assets.”
Last December, the Lipton Hollander found Britton-Harr liable for $30 million via a default judgment.
Scott Hopes briefly served as CEO last summer and said AeroVanti had racked up around $50 million in debts.
Members believed that Britton-Harr had spent their funds partly on sports team sponsorships, including with the Chicago Cubs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
However, the MLB and NFL clubs have since filed lawsuits against AeroVanti, alleging non-payment.
Private Jet Card Comparisons was the first to report that AeroVanti was grounded in June 2023 and had missed payroll for several weeks, which Britton-Harr disputed in interviews with other media.
That followed the first of more than a half-dozen lawsuits from members, beginning in May 2023.
In March of 2023, the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field had announced AeroVanti as its private aviation partner.
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