An Arkansas man has filed a lawsuit in Washington County Circuit Court, seeking a staggering $38.5 million from a Las Vegas dancer whom he claims defrauded him over a decade-long relationship, essentially alleging that the romance was nothing but a calculated con job to siphon his wealth, as reported by news3lv.com. Fred Brunner, the plaintiff, contends he was bilked out of substantial funds, including money spent on a $720,000 house in Las Vegas, gifts, and even cosmetic surgeries for Melanie Sterling, the defendant.
According to the lawsuit, Brunner was ensnared by Sterling's ruse during a vulnerable time in 2014 as he faced marital issues and frequent trips to a Las Vegas gentleman's club where Sterling worked, with the lawsuit detailing Sterling appropriated his fragile emotional state and secured trips, money, and extravagant gifts during the span of their alleged relationship. "Often amounting to five figures a month in monetary support," Brunner was convinced Sterling was "his soulmate," even footing bills for her friends at her request, news3lv.com outlined.
In addition to Sterling, the legal action implicates four unidentified John Does, presumably members of what Brunner calls a wider network that abetted Sterling’s alleged fraudulent activities. Brunner claims, as described in court documents obtained by Las Vegas Review-Journal, that over 20 other individuals may have been complicit in the scheme, which included Sterling funneling his funds to her associates.
Brunner's discovery of Sterling's duplicity came to light in January, when he found out she had been in another relationship concurrently for much, if not all, the time they were together; this revelation prompted the action where he's now seeking $3.5 million in compensatory damages and a further $35 million in punitive damages, the lawsuit alleges that in a narrow escape from not putting the home in both of their names due to fears that Brunner's children would fight over the property, Sterling transferred the house to a trust solely under her name, which violated their preliminary sales agreement, according to information from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
