The former husband of a California attorney accused of stealing $10m to fund a lavish Las Vegas stay says she “betrayed and humiliated” him.
Sara King, 39, allegedly swindled millions from a British Virgin Islands-based lender LDR International to fund her “extravagant lifestyle” during a six month stay at the Wynn Hotel’s luxury suites in Las Vegas, according to a federal lawsuit filed this month.
Ms King, who had her own loan company King Family Lending, has claimed she can’t afford to repay the loan and has only $11.98 to her name, according to the lawsuit.
Her second husband Kamran Pahlavi, a relative of the last Shah of Iran, told The Daily Beast that when he met Ms King in 2018, she drove a Rolls Royce and was “probably the best-dressed woman I had ever met”.
Ms King portrayed herself as a rising legal star who had ambitions of running for Congress as a Republican, Mr Pahlavi told The Daily Beast.
After she divorced her first husband, the pair became inseparable and married in 2022.
Mr Pahlavi said he introduced Ms King to a friend of his who ran LDR International, which said in the federal lawsuit that it invested $10.3m in Ms King’s Newport Beach-based short term loan company.
LDR International said the loans were secured by luxury cars, jewelry, designer handbags, yachts, and earnings from sports contracts.
Ms King allegedly provided pictures of herself with NFL quarterbacks Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen to convince the lender of her ties to high net wealth sportsmen.
The photos were included in a civil lawsuit filed in the California Central District Court accusing Ms King of fraud, breach of contract and civil theft.
Mr Pahlavi added that his ex-wife was a high-stakes gambler who would send photos of her jackpot winnings.
The Wynn would provide her with free villas, food and entertainment while she was gambling there, Mr Pahlavi, whose grandmother is the twin sister of Iran’s last shah, told The Beast.
He said he and his friends began to catch on when they spotted typos in bank documents from Ms King.
He told The Beast that he cut ties with Ms King after realising her loans company was allegedly swindling money from his friends. The couple divorced last year, and he moved to Morocco.
“She betrayed me. Lied to me. Stole from me. Embarrassed me. Humiliated me,” he told The Daily Beast.
Other former friends of Ms King’s have since come forward to claim they lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans.
In March last year, a California court ordered King Family Lending to halt all business activity.
The lawsuit alleges that Ms King said the business was inactive due to an “administrative problem”.
It goes on to say that she gambled “24/7” for six months at the $300 a night Wynn Casino in Las Vegas.
Ms King is also reportedly being sued by her first husband, who claimed in a lawsuit last year that she had forged his signature to gain a $250,000 loan secured by their Newport Beach property.
