- July 19, 2025
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Patrick Britton-Harr, the founder of the Sarasota private jet membership firm AeroVanti, has been indicted in two separate cases and is facing more than 100 years in prison.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday evening that the cases involve his dealings in AeroVanti and for allegedly fraudulently billing Medicare through another of his companies, Provista Health.
In the AeroVanti indictment, Britton-Harr, 41, is charged with six counts of wire fraud. In the other, he is charged with five counts of health care fraud and one count of money laundering.
If convicted, the justice department says, he faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on each wire fraud count and 10 years in prison on each health care fraud and money laundering count.
Britton-Harr, according to the Justice Department, currently lives in South Carolina. He had previously lived locally, in Tampa and Sarasota, and in Annapolis, Maryland.
The indictments are another turn for a businessman who just a few years ago was hailed as a rising star. He received several awards locally and was featured in stories about his business prowess.
In 2022, the Business Observer named the then 38-year-old to its 40 Under 40 list. In a story for that issue, Britton-Harr told the paper that his businesses “don’t run from a hierarchy, we run as functions.”
“It is very much an all-for-one, one-for-all aspect where we win together and we lose together. We do that by supporting each other.”
But less than a year later, customers and vendors began to file lawsuits charging that AeroVanti sold $150,000 Top Gun memberships for planes that had been repossessed; allegations its fleet had been grounded while it poured money into pro sports and other sponsorships; and questions about the veracity of claims it raised $100 million from investors.
That was followed by lawsuits from former employees, several reshufflings of the CEO position and charges of contempt in a Maryland federal court.
Despite that, as recently as October 2024 Britton-Harr continued to insist that all was well and that he had a plan to bring AeroVanti back.
According to Justice Department’s indictment in the AeroVanti case, Britton-Harr allegedly recruited nearly 100 Top Gun members who paid nearly $15 million in upfront payments so he and the business could purchase five aircraft.
But the money did not go toward the aircraft. Instead, Britton-Harr, the Justice Department says, allegedly used the members' money to buy yachts and jewelry, to pay his living expenses and to rent a property near Tampa.
Prosecutors contend he tried to hide the fraud by getting a $1.5 million loan to purchase one of the aircraft he had already claimed to have purchased with member funds “by withholding material information from the lender to obtain the loan.”
In the Medicare case, the Justice Department alleges Britton-Harr offered COVID-19 screening tests to nursing home patients across the country and then, through Provista Health, fraudulently billed Medicare for respiratory pathogen panel tests for these patients.
The RPP tests, the DoJ says, “were medically unnecessary, were never ordered by a treating physician as required and many were never actually performed, including for patients who had died.”
The company filed $15 million in fraudulent claims for tests of which Medicare paid $5 million.
The FBI, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General investigated the cases.
Trial Attorneys David Peters and Chris Wenger of the Justice Department’s criminal division’s fraud section, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew P. Phelps and Ari D. Evans for the District of Maryland are prosecuting the cases.
