- A California lawyer allegedly spent $10 million in loans for fake clients to fund a Las Vegas lifestyle for six months.
- LDR International, the company claiming to have funded the loans, sued Sara Jacqueline King this month.
The lawyer being sued by a lending company for allegedly creating fake clients to dupe them into giving her over $10 million in loans to live and gamble "24/7" in Las Vegas for months now claims her ex-husband was behind the operation, and manipulated her into gambling the money away.
LDR International Limited, based in the British Virgin Islands, filed a 33-page complaint in California Central District Court last month accusing Sara Jacqueline King, and her company, King Family Lending, of breach of contract, fraud, and civil theft.
The company accused King of providing them with falsified documents and evidence of collateral for a total of 97 loans amounting to $10,258,500 from January to October 2022.
King filed a crossclaim Tuesday against her ex-husband, who was identified in LDR's suit as Kamran Pahlavi, and who allegedly fled to Morocco in November as the fraud began to unravel and has since provided LDR with evidence that King was "engaged in a massive fraud."
King now claims that Pahlavi, who she alleges is really named Kamran Abbas-Vahid, manipulated her into getting married in February 2022 so he could secure a green card and introduced her to a friend of his from LDR that would facilitate loans.
After an unspecified number of the loans defaulted and the collateral — assets a borrower agrees can be seized/sold by the lender if they fail to pay the loan, in this case a boat, watch, and two cars — was allegedly stolen, King claims that her ex-husband urged her not to tell LDR, because it would stop funding loans if it knew anything had gone wrong.
She also claims she was pressured by her ex-husband into playing slot machines to win the money back that they had lost, so they could repay LDR and continue with the business. King alleges this pattern continued, as her ex-husband took the large sums she won on slot machines. She says he would argue with her if she did not agree to continue playing the slots, if she said they should stop gambling and pay LDR back.
King alleges the pair continued to argue and her ex-husband stole money and property from her home until she revoked sponsorship of her ex-husband's green card, and they separated and began divorce proceedings late last year. She says her ex-husband's actions caused her at least $4.4 million in damages, and claims he stole from her and recorded her without her knowledge while attempting to persuade her to lie to others.
LDR's suit alleges King would submit a "Secured Promissory Note" to LDR International as proof that the loan terms had been agreed to, but the personal information of the loan's recipient would be redacted. LDR claims this prevented it from ever knowing for sure whether their loans were actually given to the intended client.
King allegedly served as an intermediary in the loan process separate from her law practice, King Reuben, starting when she formed the King Family Lending LLC in February 2020. The suit does not include any information about how much loan-related activity the company performed prior to becoming involved with LDR in January 2022.
The suit claims King used most of the money lent by LDR to fund her own lifestyle, and at some point in 2022, "moved into the Wynn Las Vegas resort and hotel, lived there for six months, and gambled 24/7."
LDR also claims that King, a licensed attorney based in Newport Beach, California, kept submitting requests for loans for months after her license as a finance lender expired in April 2022. King claimed the license was yet to be renewed because of an administrative issue, which LDR said it believes to be false.
The complaint includes a spreadsheet detailing the amounts, duration, and collateral provided for each of the 97 loans. LDR claims the list of collateral came in a variety of forms ranging from luxury cars and jewelry to earnings from guaranteed professional sports contracts and were fabricated along with the rest of the details of the loans.
As additional evidence of her lifestyle and connections to high-profile athletes, King sent LDR a picture of herself with NFL quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, and Josh Allen. The picture and others appearing to show King's successful lifestyle were seemingly meant to increase LDR's confidence in the fact that she was becoming a successful lender, and trust that they could continue to fund loans through her.
The picture appears to have been taken during The Match, a televised exhibition round of golf between the NFL stars that took place last summer at the Wynn Golf Club in Las Vegas, which is connected to the resort where LDR alleges King lived for six months.
LDR also included in the complaint a screenshot allegedly from King showing three Bank of America accounts that totaled $12, which she claimed is all the money she has left to her name as of earlier this month.
The company alleged that King is still asking for money to make back what she may have gambled away, and claims she was still presenting the lending company with fake deals as of February 9.
Los Angeles Magazine reported earlier this month that King was allegedly still gambling at casinos across Las Vegas, and was escorted out of the Wynn, from which she was banned in November after management was informed of her alleged fraud against other guests and employees, as recently as late February.
The last loan funded by LDR was issued in October, and matured, or reached the date when the loan was originally agreed to be repaid in full, about a week before LDR's suit was filed last month. While the suit says King has paid interest on some of the loans, none have been paid back in full and the lawyer is allegedly now in default on all 97.
A request for comment to one email on King Family Lending's website was bounced back to Insider as the address didn't exist or was inactive, and one sent to another address on the site was not immediately returned.