AeroVanti's Britton-Harr looks to squash evidence as May trial approaches

With just four months before Patrick Britton-Harr heads to trial May 18, the attorney for the twice-indicted CEO of Sarasota private jet membership firm AeroVanti has asked a federal judge in Maryland to exempt evidence found in a search of his email.

The motion to suppress, filed Feb. 11, claims that a search warrant sought and executed by the Inspector General’s Office of the U.S. Department of Transportation “fails to establish an adequate nexus between the place to be searched and probable cause, if any.”

Because of that, Baltimore attorney Gerald C. Ruter writes in the motion, the judge should find that “any evidence seized directly or indirectly from the search as being in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

Britton-Harr is the founder and CEO of the Sarasota and Annapolis, Maryland, private jet firm. He faces decades in federal prison after being indicted twice last year, once in a case involving his dealings at AeroVanti and once for Medicare fraud.

In the AeroVanti indictment, he 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 said last year, 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.

He is scheduled to go on trial in the AeroVanti case May 18. The Medicare fraud trial is scheduled for Oct. 13.

Both trials will be held in Baltimore.

AeroVanti was founded in 2021 selling memberships to groups that would share the use of private planes bought from the proceeds of the memberships. Early on, it was seen as a top up-and-coming company in the region and Britton-Harr a rising entrepreneurial star. (In 2022, the Business Observer named the then 38-year-old to its 40 Under 40 list.)

At one point, while announcing a new hire in 2022, Britton-Harr said revenue had grown 400% since launching in July 2021.

But it wasn’t too long before customers and vendors began to file lawsuits charging 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 in the Medicare fraud case after a $30 million judgement.

This as Britton-Harr was allegedly enriching himself. According to the indictment, he “devised and knowingly intended to devise an artifice to defraud (members), to obtain money and property by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses and promises.”

Prosecutors allege he defrauded victims of $14.7 million.

Ruter, Britton-Harr's attorney, did not respond to a request for comment for this story or a request to make Britton-Harr available for an interview.

In the motion to suppress, Ruter writes that when the government made its request for a search warrant, it knew AeroVanti had hired an attorney to draft nearly all the documents significant to the case.

Because of this, “The government clearly knew and expected to see extensive email exchanges between AeroVanti personnel, including Mr. Britton-Harr and his counsel.”

This, the motion says, led to a violation of attorney/client privilege.

In addition to that, the motion says the government asked for permission to seize and review “evidence indicating the email account owner’s state of mind as it relates to the crime under investigation.”

“This request,” the motion says, “is as vast as the human mind and invites the government to stray as it will as it searches the recesses of the mind of any person who happened to communicate with the owner of the account.”

Prosecutors have not yet responded.

The search warrant for the two email addresses, according to a July 2024 affidavit included in court records and signed by Transportation Department investigator Charles Bradford, show investigators were in search of emails written by Britton-Harr, Robert De Pol, the company’s then chief operating officer, and others associated with AeroVanti.

The warrant was to be served on Microsoft in Redmond, Washington, where the information was stored.

The affidavit goes on to detail email exchanges between Britton-Harr and company officials with two AeroVanti members who were used to recruit new Top Gun members and it details what it called “the execution of the alleged scheme.”

The idea behind the Top Gun program was to use the membership fees to buy aircraft debt-free while offering a pre-set number of flight hours. Members, who paid the $150,000 to join, were organized into five LLCs of 20 members each and the approximately $3 million per LLC was then put into escrow for the purpose of buying and refurbishing the planes.

Between April and October 2022, the affidavit for the warrant says, Britton-Harr had 28 disbursements made from the Top Gun escrow accounts totaling $14.3 million into AeroVanti accounts.

Britton-Harr, Bradford writes in the affidavit, claimed the money was needed for the purchase of the five planes “but this was a lie.”

“None of the members’ money was used to buy aircraft.”

Instead, Bradford writes, it was used to fund Britton-Harr’s lifestyle, buy yachts and conduct real estate transactions.

As for what Britton-Harr is doing today, court records show that he is living in Maryland with his wife and three-month old child.

In January, he requested that the conditions of his release set following his arrest last year be modified. That, the motion making the request shows, includes the return of his pilot’s license and the removal of electronic monitoring.

Prosecutors opposed the motion, arguing he is operating another private jet chartering company called BrixleyXchange “including managing the company’s bank account in violation of his conditions of release.”

The motion was denied.