Trio plead not guilty in alleged plot to kill Why Don't We singer Jack Avery
Three people have pleaded not guilty in a California court to charges that they plotted to kill Jack Avery, a singer in the group Why Don't We.
The pleas were entered at an arraignment, the formal hearing where defendants respond to criminal charges. The defendants are Gabriela “Gabbie” Gonzalez, her father Francisco Gonzalez and her former boyfriend Kai Faron Cordrey, according to Rolling Stone reporting on the proceedings.
Gonzalez is 25 and described as a TikTok influencer and Avery’s former partner. Francisco Gonzalez is 59 and a lawyer in Florida. Cordrey is 26 and a surf instructor based in Hawaii.
Each defendant faces three counts: attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and solicitation of murder, meaning asking or paying another person to carry out a killing. All three denied the charges.
Los Angeles County prosecutors allege the plot was organised amid a custody dispute over Gonzalez’s 7-year-old daughter with Avery. They allege the conspiracy involved a plan to hire a paid killer recruited through the dark web.
Prosecutors allege that between October 2020 and May 2021, Gonzalez repeatedly discussed wanting Avery dead and brought in Cordrey to help. They allege the pair discussed paying in Bitcoin and trying to make the killing look like an accident.
The allegations then point to money and messages. Prosecutors allege Francisco Gonzalez sent Cordrey $10,000 in April 2021 to find and hire someone to kill Avery. They allege Cordrey moved the money into a Gemini cryptocurrency account and contacted a dark-web murder-for-hire account under the name LizardKing69.
Prosecutors allege Cordrey named Avery as the target on 22 May 2021, supplied a Los Angeles address and said Avery could be shot or killed in a staged incident. They further allege that in September 2021, Cordrey spoke by phone with an undercover FBI agent posing as a hit man about the target, payment and proof of death.
Gonzalez’s next hearing was postponed until 18 Nov. Francisco Gonzalez had earlier been arrested in Florida and was awaiting extradition, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said in a May statement. The charges are allegations. No findings of guilt have been made, and the case continues through the courts.
