Donald Trump Donor Sued for Fraud

A donor who gave Bitcoin that was at the time worth $850,000 to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is facing a class action suit over allegations of fraud, legal filings show.
According to the filings seen by Newsweek, Gary Cardone, who donated 12.8 Bitcoin to the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign earlier this month, stands jointly accused with his company Chargebacks911 and its co-owner, Monica Eaton, of using deceptive practices within the business. The defendants have denied wrongdoing and have tried to dismiss the case without success.
Ahead of November’s presidential election, Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for the presidential election, have stepped up their fundraising efforts. Harris has reported a surge in donations after President Joe Biden quit the presidential race.
While Cardone’s $850,000 equivalent donation to Trump’s campaign is small in comparison to the reported $50 million his campaign received from billionaire Timothy Mellon, according to federal filings, it is not the first time his donors have come under scrutiny.
The legal complaint against Cardone and the others was filed in 2023 and turned into a class action suit on 13 August 2024. It was filed by Janet Sihler and Charlene Bavencoff, consumers who say they were deceived by Brightree Holdings Limited over the sale of diet pills. Newsweek was unable to find this company’s contact details.
The plaintiffs allege that it was only because of the actions of the accused that Brightree was able to continue sales. They allege that the named defendants, Carone, Eaton and their company sought to minimize the scale of chargebacks to banks and credit card companies from customers seeking refunds for diet pills they had thought were wrongly charged for. The filing alleges that those banks and credit card companies would not have continued processing payments for the diet pill company if they had understood the true scale of the chargebacks.
Corey Roush, the defendants’ lawyer, told Newsweek that Brightree used Chargebacks911’s services between 2019 and 2021 but alleged that Brightree stopped paying their bills, leading Chargebacks911 to pause their account and terminate Brightree as a user.
He added that the the plaintiffs sued Brightree and its payment processer in California and in doing so, learnt that Brightree had used Chargebacks911 causing them to pursue them “in hopes of finding a deep pocket.”
He said that Cardone retired from the company before the suit was filed and that Chargebacks911 will appeal the court’s decision to certify the case as a class action suit. He said the company also “plans to continue to vigorously defend against this suit given the concocted theory and complete lack of evidence supporting that theory.”
Kevin Kneupper from Kneupper & Covey, the attorneys representing the plaintiffs, told Newsweek in an email the firm believes the case will result in an excess of $70 million in damages.
The defendants, Cardone and Eaton, disputed the Sihler and Bavencoff’s lawsuit and filed three unsuccessful motions to dismiss the case, legal filings show.
In one filing in September 2023, the Cardone and Eaton’s legal team wrote: “Unfortunately, the online retail space has some bad actors who make false promises in advertisements or otherwise engage in deceptive conduct. Sometimes those bad actors use ChgBacks911’s service to handle their chargebacks.”
The defendants also filed an opposition to the case against Cardone and Eaton being turned into a class-action suit, arguing the case has “no basis in law.”
SIhler and Bavencoff’s lawsuit comes after the Federal Trade Commission and Florida reached a $150,000 settlement with Chargebacks911 in November 2023 over a similar issue with different alleged online scams that banned the company from working with certain kinds of merchants.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said at the time: “Chargebacks911 submitted screenshots to make it look like consumers agreed to payments that they were never even shown. This deception and exploitation is despicable, completely undermining the integrity of financial transactions in Florida. I am appalled by Chargebacks911 and proud of my Consumer Protection Division’s success.”
In a statement at the time about the case, Eaton said: “I don’t believe that we’ve ever had an unethical business or a business that hasn’t been compliant.
“We look forward to moving forward and continuing to focus on what we do best,” she said.
Cardone, the twin brother of real estate businessman, Grant Cardone, has also donated to other Republican causes. In 2016, he donated $2,700 to Trump’s presidential campaign, Federal Election Commission (FEC) data shows. He has also donated to other Republicans including Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur who previously ran for the Republican presidential nomination.
His brother, Grant Cardone, has also made donations to Republican figures including Arizona Republican Kari Lake, according to FEC filings.
His sister-in-law, Elena Cardone, started a GoFundMe page to help Trump pay the fine he received in his New York civil fraud trial, and has also made donations to Trump.