“See, when you do clownery, the clown comes back to bite!” The queen of comedy, Mo’Nique, said it best! By now, Roomies, you should be familiar with Simon Leviev, the subject of the Netflix true-crime documentary ‘The Tinder Swindler.’ In the documentary, viewers watched Simon pretend to be the son of the King of diamonds to scam women out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Well, Lev Leviev and his family have had enough of Simon using their name for clout and have pursued legal action against the fraudster.
According to People, Simon, born Shimon Hayu, is being sued by the Leviev family for millions of dollars for pretending to be a part of the lineage. The lawsuit, filed in Tel Aviv, Israel, claims that “for a long time, he [Simon Leviev] has been making false representations as being the son of Lev Leviev and receiving numerous benefits (including material ones).” In addition, the real Leviev family alleges that Simon has been “cunningly using false words, claiming to be a member of the Leviev Family and that his family will pay and bear the costs of his benefits.”
If you recall, Simon changed his name and used the Leviev name to gain trust from his multiple victims through the Tinder, which he has since been banned from. Through his plotting and scheming, Simon swindled an estimated $10 million from people across the globe. Eventually, he was convicted of fraud, theft, and forgery and sentenced to 15 months in prison in December 2019, but was released five months later.
While it’s unclear the amount the Leviev family is suing for, their Attorney Guy Ophir said in a statement that more legal action might be forthcoming.
“This legal action is only the beginning of a number of lawsuits that my firm is currently working on. In the next phase, we will file a monetary suit against Hayut and any other affiliate that will work with him, including some websites that have Joint ventures with Hayut and/or have offered to buy cameos from him. Anyone that will try to capitalize from this scheme will be sued.”
Currently, Simon hasn’t responded to the lawsuit, but we will keep you posted when he does!
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