A TikTok influencer has been charged with teaming with her father and ex-boyfriend to hire a hitman off the dark web to kill musician Jack Avery, a former member of the boy band Why Don’t We.
Gabbie Gonzalez, 24, shares a seven-year-old daughter with Avery, 26. Prosecutors allege she helped devise the murder-for-hire plot to resolve a bitter custody dispute with the singer.
According to court filings, Gonzalez was arrested last week in Northern California. She appeared Tuesday in a plexiglass holding pen in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom, wearing a blue hoodie, handcuffs, and the long curly hair familiar to followers of her TikTok and Instagram accounts, which each boast nearly half a million followers. She did not enter a plea. Her lawyer asked for more time to review the evidence, and the judge continued her arraignment to Thursday. The judge set bail at $2 million and ordered Gonzalez to stay at least 100 yards from Avery and their child, with no contact.
Gonzalez, her father, Francisco Gonzalez, 59, and Kai Faron Cordrey, 26, were charged together Tuesday with one count each of attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and solicitation of murder, according to the felony complaint filed by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office and obtained by Rolling Stone. Francisco was arrested Monday in Seminole County, Florida, and was being held without bond, according to online jail records.
Prosecutors allege that between October 2020 and May 2021, Gabbie “repeatedly discussed wanting Jack Avery dead,” and that she enlisted Cordrey, her boyfriend at the time, to help hire someone to carry out the killing. They say Gabbie and Cordrey discussed using Bitcoin on the “dark web” and that they planned on “making the killing appear to be an accident.”
Gabbie’s father allegedly sent Cordrey $10,000 as front money for the plot on April 26, 2021. Prosecutors claim Cordrey transferred the money to a Gemini cryptocurrency account and “began using a dark-web murder-for-hire account using the alias “LizardKing69.” Cordrey identified the target as Jack Avery on May 22, 2021, provided an address in Los Angeles, and instructed the account’s participants that Avery “should be killed by whatever method was easiest,” the felony complaint alleges.
On June 4, 2021, the account administrator demanded an additional $4,000, and Cordrey went back to Francisco for the additional funds, prosecutors allege. Several days after that, Cordrey allegedly requested that Avery be killed within a couple of days, prosecutors say.
Prosecutors claim that on Sept. 19, 2021, an undercover FBI agent posing as a hit man from the group spoke with Cordrey by phone about the purported plot. Cordrey allegedly identified Avery as the target and discussed payment and proof of death. In a later conversation, Cordrey allegedly said Gabbie wanted the killing carried out and that Francisco could pay for it. Francisco then contacted the undercover agent using the texted password “Bullrun” to discuss a prior Bitcoin payment, prosecutors allege.
On Oct. 20, 2022, Gabbie allegedly spoke with Cordrey on a recorded call about the communications with the supposed hitman and “how to respond to the threat of exposure,” according to the complaint. Gabbie also allegedly told Cordrey “that she could speak with her father…because he had been handling most of it,” prosecutors allege.
If convicted as charged, all three defendants face 25 years to life in state prison, prosecutors say.
Leading up to the hearing, Avery sought a civil restraining order in Los Angeles County Family Court. In a declaration, he claimed that he learned of the alleged murder-for-hire plot in 2021.
“I was notified by the FBI that a hit man was hired to kill me,” he wrote. The singer said a detective notified him on Friday that Gabbie had been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and was in police custody. He said their daughter had been placed with a foster family, and that he rushed to pick her up on Saturday.
Avery further claimed that Gabbie’s family members have been calling and texting him “relentlessly, demanding to know where [the child] is,” and that two women identified as Gonzalez’s friends showed up at his Southern California home and were “banging” on his door and ringing his doorbell, also looking for the little girl.
He claimed that the FBI warned him “it was not safe” to be around Gabbie, and he was “very aware of the safety risks” every time he scheduled a visit with his daughter.
“I continued to travel to see [my daughter] and had to learn to manage my own fears and anxiety,” he wrote. “I did so because of how important [my daughter] is to me and out of serious concern for her safety and wellbeing.”
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