A Los Angeles Penthouse Pet accused of robbing rich men dodged jail despite two new court order violations.
Adva Lavie, 28, facing multiple felonies for robbing men she met online, was spared jail time by a Los Angeles judge who issued only a warning, changing the language of the order to prohibit her from having any contact with witnesses, after her defense filed a motion asking for diversion.
Lavie, known as “Mia Ventura,” is accused of using dating apps to target wealthy men and young women in affluent Los Angeles neighborhoods to steal cash, gold, and designer goods.
Prosecutors allege that from 2023–2025, Lavie trolled dating apps and cultivated relationships to burglarize and steal from wealthy older men and younger women in Westlake Village, West Hollywood, Los Angeles and Beverly Hills.
Model Adva Lavie, aka Mia Ventura, stands accused of hunting her victims using “sugar daddy” websites and posing as the perfect girlfriend before slipping into their posh Los Angeles homes and cleaning them out, prosecutors say.
One of Lavie’s alleged marks, former Beverly Hills attorney Michael Craine, 80, lived in a mansion behind the gates of the exclusive Mulholland Estates; one day in April of 2025, Craine and his daughter discovered $100,000 worth of clothes and handbags had gone missing from the closets — including Elizabeth’s wedding dress.
When Elizabeth checked Lavie’s Instagram account, she noticed the model wearing a “very distinct, hard to get” zebra-print dress that had vanished from her wardrobe.
Elizabeth also found posts of Lavie wearing her shoes, according to the testimony.
Craine called the alleged clothing theft “a bridge too far,” after he had already suspected Lavie of stealing from him.
Hairstylist Eden Lynn Strelioff, 31, was one of her alleged victims; Strelioff told The Post how the brazen porn star stole her card and charged $900 in hair extensions, booking herself into a posh Beverly Hills salon under her real name; during podcast filming, “she went into the other room. She took multiple people’s cards, cash, just rummaged through our belongings,” Strelioff alleged.
“Over the next couple of weeks, there was a charge on my Platinum Amex for a saloon in Beverly Hills for $900. Lavie pleaded not guilty to all charges at court in Los Angeles this week. “She was getting extensions,” Strelioff recalled, saying she alerted police to the matter. They later told her Lavie was apparently involved in a “string of robberies.” “She’s done this to many people she’s come into contact with,” Strelioff said.
Entrepreneur Michael Sartain, who featured Lavie on his “Access Vegas” podcast, claimed “She found men who had something to lose. I have two guys that I know who will not come forward.” It was after filming Sartain’s podcast that former Penthouse magazine cover star Lavie is alleged by police to have rifled through several people’s bags and stolen credit cards.
He claims her behavior “seems like kleptomania” to him.
Sartain said that over the years, Lavie has been a fixture at charity events at L.A. and Vegas clubs and has been known to threaten her victims to keep them from going to police. “She would threaten to file a false sexual assault charge or say that the guy offered her money for sex, or something to that effect,” he explained.
A Hermosa Beach man, Scott Thurman, who met Lavie on Tinder also found fraudulent charges on his credit cards, including hundreds spent on cosmetics and Southwest Airline tickets, police testified. When Thurman threatened to file a lawsuit against Lavie, Thurman told police she accused him of sexual assault.
In court, her attorney Louis Shapiro read a text Lavie wrote to Thurman: “I will never forget the night I was crying and told you I wanted to leave and you grabbed me and lifted me onto the bed in the bedroom and f–ked me while I was crying with tears.” “All I asked was forgiveness from you.” Thurman responded, according to Shapiro.
The porn star and former Penthouse pet of the month told the Daily Mail that the allegations were “all new” to her and that she was the victim of a conspiracy theory. “I think when you probably hang out with someone really powerful and someone really connected, if you piss them off, it’s problematic because they can really f— you over,” she said.
In the viral moment that kicked off public awareness of Lavie’s scheme, one of her victims’ daughters discovered her flaunting stolen luxury goods on Instagram.
Elizabeth Craine, daughter of the allegedly robbed Beverly Hills attorney, noticed Lavie’s social media account displaying the distinctive zebra-print dress, shoes, and handbags that had vanished from the family home’s closets at Mulholland Estates.
The smoking-gun Instagram post led investigators straight to Lavie and unlocked the wider investigation into her pattern of targeting vulnerable men.
Following a preliminary hearing on March 23, a judge ruled there is sufficient evidence for Lavie to stand trial on six felony counts, and on Monday, March 23, Ventura—whose real name is Adva Lavie—was held to answer on six felony counts, including first-degree residential burglary and grand theft.
Lavie, who has pleaded not guilty and is currently monitored via an ankle bracelet, is scheduled for arraignment on April 6; she faces a maximum sentence of over 11 years in state prison if convicted.
A hearing on the diversion matter has been scheduled for August 10.