Jurors have reached a verdict in the lawsuit filed by NFL quarterback Drew Brees against a La Jolla jeweler that he said misrepresented the value of diamonds and defrauded him out of $6.7 million.
The civil lawsuit filed by Brees and his wife, Brittany Brees, in San Diego County Superior Court accuses Vahid Moradi of breach of oral contract, fraud by intentional misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary duty and fraud by concealment.
A jury ruled in the Breeses favor on all for actions Friday, and decided they would be awarded more than $6.1 million in damages.
“I think the jury saw Mr. Moradi for what he is, and that’s a con man," Brees's attorney Andrew Kim said. "[The jury] did find that he committed fraud both by affirmative misrepresentations and also concealing facts that were within his knowledge but that the Breeses couldn’t know, and that was all part of a scheme to do exactly what Mr. Moradi did, and that was to make an illicit $6 million profit when he wasn’t supposed to make any profit at all.”
Brees and Moradi met through a teammate Brees had when he was in college.
The two men had entered into 10 transactions since they first started discussing diamonds as investments in 2010.
Moradi's attorneys argued the diamonds were fairly priced and that Brees was aware of their arrangement.
Moradi's defense denied allegations that Moradi went after Brees's money.
The defense argued diamonds are a good investment and explained the difference between wholesale diamonds and retail diamonds to the jury.
