TikTok influencer Gabbie Gonzalez, her father, and her ex-boyfriend pleaded not guilty in a California courtroom Monday to charges they plotted to kill Why Don’t We singer Jack Avery with a paid assassin recruited on the dark web.
Los Angeles County prosecutors say the trio conspired to kill Avery amid a bitter and prolonged custody battle over Gonzalez’s seven-year-old daughter with the boy-band singer. Gonzalez, 25; her father, Florida lawyer Francisco Gonzalez, 59; and Hawaii-based surf instructor Kai Faron Cordrey, 26, appeared in court while out of custody on varying conditions. Each is charged with the same three counts of attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and solicitation of murder.
“Yes, your honor,” Gabbie told the judge when asked whether she agreed to postpone her next hearing until Nov. 18. She otherwise remained silent during the proceeding and declined to answer media questions afterward.
“There are two sides to every case, and thus far, the public has heard only one. We are confident that when the evidence is presented, tested, and placed in its proper context, a very different picture of Gabriela and this case will emerge,” her lawyer, Elliot R. Zarabi, said in a statement after the arraignment.
In a prior court filing asking that Gabbie be allowed to see her daughter while the case is pending, Zarabi argued his client “played a comparatively limited role in the alleged conduct,” with the “primary operational aspects” of the alleged scheme purportedly carried out by Cordrey.
“Much of the evidence against Ms. Gonzalez derives from statements made by Cordrey himself, a charged co-defendant, with every incentive to shift blame and minimize his own conduct,” Zarabi wrote to the court. He claimed prosecutors lacked “direct evidence showing that Ms. Gonzalez hired a hit man, negotiated a killing, transmitted cryptocurrency, communicated with undercover operatives, or directly engaged in operational planning.”
Prosecutors, meanwhile, say Gabbie and her family viewed Avery as “the obstacle to their desired control” over the child. Gabbie and her father’s alleged conduct “escalated from family-court litigation and efforts to discredit Jack, to surveillance and attempted third-party intimidation, and ultimately to a funded murder-for-hire plot designed to remove Jack permanently,” Deputy District Attorney Alexander Bott wrote in a July 22 court filing obtained by Rolling Stone.
Lawyers for Cordrey and Francisco did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone’s requests for comment on Monday.
Prosecutors allege that between October 2020 and May 2021, Gabbie “repeatedly discussed wanting Jack Avery dead,” and that she enlisted Cordrey to help. They say Gabbie and Cordrey discussed using bitcoins on the “dark web” and how they hoped to make the hit “appear to be an accident.”
According to the felony complaint, Gabbie’s father allegedly sent Cordrey $10,000 in April 2021 to find and hire someone to kill Avery. Prosecutors say Cordrey moved the money into a Gemini cryptocurrency account and began communicating with a dark web murder-for-hire account under the alias “LizardKing69.” On May 22, 2021, Cordrey allegedly identified Avery as the target, provided a Los Angeles address for his location and said Avery could be killed by whatever method was easiest, including a shooting or staged incident, the complaint states.
The account administrator allegedly demanded another $4,000 on June 4, prompting Cordrey to go back to Francisco for more money. Days later, Cordrey allegedly pressed for Avery to be killed within a couple of days, the complaint states.
Prosecutors say the plot continued into September 2021, when an undercover FBI agent posing as a hit man spoke with Cordrey by phone. Cordrey allegedly identified Avery as the target and discussed payment and proof of death. In a later call, Cordrey allegedly said Gabbie wanted Avery killed and that Francisco could pay for it. Prosecutors say Francisco then contacted the undercover agent using the password “Bullrun” and discussed a previous bitcoin payment.
More than a year later, on Oct. 20, 2022, Gabbie allegedly spoke with Cordrey on a recorded call about the supposed hit man and “how to respond to the threat of exposure,” according to the complaint. She also allegedly said she could talk to her father because “he had been handling most of it.”
If convicted as charged, all three defendants face 25 years to life in state prison, prosecutors say.
A few days before the wild case was made public in May, Avery sought a civil restraining order in Los Angeles County Family Court, saying he had known about the alleged murder-for-hire plot since 2021. “I was notified by the FBI that a hit man was hired to kill me,” Avery wrote in a declaration.
The singer said a detective told him that Gabbie had been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and was in police custody. Their daughter had been placed with a foster family, he said, and he rushed to pick her up. He claimed Gabbie’s relatives had been calling and texting him “relentlessly” demanding to know where the child was. Two women he identified as Gonzalez’s friends allegedly showed up at his Southern California home, banging on the door and ringing the bell while looking for the girl.
He said the FBI warned him “it was not safe” to be around Gabbie and that he remained “very aware of the safety risks” whenever he arranged visits with his daughter.
“I continued to travel to see [my daughter] and had to learn to manage my own fears and anxiety,” Avery wrote in his petition for a civil restraining order against Gabbie. “I did so because of how important [my daughter] is to me and out of serious concern for her safety and well-being.”
Nicolas Gerardin
Macklemore performing in France in August
Macklemore Dropped From Ed Sheeran Tour After Onstage ‘Free Palestine’ Statements
Macklemore has been removed from the rest of Ed Sheeran’s stadium tour after several venues allegedly told the trek’s promoter that they would not allow the rapper to perform. The news came after Macklemore made several onstage statements in support of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and called for a “free Palestine.”
In an exclusive statement shared with Rolling Stone, Messina Touring Group, promoter of the U.S. leg of Sheeran’s Loop Tour, said: “As the concert promoter for Ed Sheeran’s U.S. Loop Tour, we have been notified by venues on the upcoming U.S. tour dates that they will not allow a concert to take place with Macklemore on the lineup, which would result in the cancellation of the tour and impact hundreds of thousands of fans. After discussions with stakeholders, Macklemore will not be performing on the remaining support dates.”
Macklemore was slated to appear at eight of the 10 shows left on the U.S. leg of Sheeran’s tour, which is set to resume this Friday, Sept. 19, in Philadelphia. The venues that allegedly objected to the rapper include: Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia; Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts; Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta; Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis; Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina; AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas; and Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.
Reps for Sheeran, Macklemore, and most of the venues did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
Macklemore — who’s been an outspoken supporter of Palestinians and those in Gaza for several years — joined the Loop Tour earlier this month, performing two shows at MetLife Stadium outside of New York City, on Sept. 4 and 5. At the first show, the Seattle rapper yelled “Free Palestine” onstage and expressed solidarity with people in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. He also showed images from the devastation in Gaza and performed his protest song, “Hind’s Hall,” about pro-Palestine demonstrators at Columbia, who occupied a building and named it after Hind Raja, a six-year-old killed by the Israeli military.
“A big part of the reason why I wanted to do this tour in the first place is so I could stand up in stadiums like this and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart: ‘Free Palestine,’” he said during the first MetLife show. “I said, ‘Free Palestine!’ I want those words to be loud and clear, so that people all the way in Gaza to the occupied West Bank know that we have not forgotten about them.”
This spurred much criticism and backlash from pro-Israel groups. StopAntisemitism accused the rapper of ambushing fans with “anti-Israel propaganda” in an Instagram post, which the pop singer Pink amplified.
Pink later explained that she did not object to Macklemore’s calls for a “Free Palestine,” but said, “I have never asked for another artist to be silenced and I’m not asking now. I don’t need anyone fired, and I don’t need a refund. What I need is to be able to say, as a Jewish mom, ‘that scared me, and it scared people I love,’ without being told our fear is just propaganda, and without being told I’m somehow cool with genocide because I noticed?”
Additionally, the Israeli American Council launched a petition demanding Sheeran remove Macklemore from the rest of the tour, claiming his actions raised questions over “where the line should be drawn when an opening act uses a global concert platform to advance a one-sided political agenda.”
At the second MetLife show, Macklemore reiterated his calls for a “Free Palestine” and addressed Jewish members of the audience, saying, “Criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is a criticism of you. My message is for peace; love for all human beings to be treated with dignity, respect, and equality.” (Humanitarian groups and a United Nations commission have said Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide. Israel and its allies, including the United States, have denied this.)
The stadiums that allegedly would not allow a Macklemore show did not immediately return requests for comments either, including for explanations as to why they objected to the rapper performing at their venue. While two of those stadiums are privately owned — Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte and Gillette Stadium in Foxborough — the rest are owned and, in many cases, operated by cities, states, or other government entities, potentially raising First Amendment issues if the venues barred Macklemore over his statements.
The last stop on Sheeran’s Loop Tour, for instance, is Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, which found itself in a similar spot earlier this summer after booking two Kanye West concerts. The shows, unsurprisingly, drew backlash and calls for cancellation due to West’s many past antisemitic statements, but they went ahead as planned.
Pointedly, Ye’s promoter included a clause in his contract prohibiting Raymond James Stadium from canceling the gigs based on the rapper’s past public statements or viewpoints. But legal experts also told local news that canceling the shows would’ve likely violated the First Amendment. Because Raymond James is owned by Hillsborough County, Florida, and operated by a public board, the Tampa Sports Authority, any cancellation based on Ye’s past statements could have been seen as the government restricting speech.
When reached for comment on the Macklemore decision, a rep for the Tampa Sports Authority told Rolling Stone, “We can confirm Macklemore will not be performing at the upcoming show. Apart from this lineup change, the concert will go forward as planned.”
The North American leg of Sheeran’s Loop Tour is set to run through the fall, wrapping Nov. 7 at Raymond James Stadium. During the trek, Sheeran will continue to receive support from Lukas Graham and Aaron Rowe. A South American leg of the Loop Tour will follow in November and December.