Marianne Flippo has sued male escort Gregg Starr, alleging he scammed her out of nearly $6 million through a fraudulent “exit agreement.”
Flippo, 49, filed the Manhattan Supreme Court suit Monday against Starr, 38, a silver-haired companion she met through Cowboys 4 Angels, the male escort agency featured on Showtime’s “Gigolos.” The grieving widow, who suffers from a severe genetic medical condition, turned to the agency months after her husband Chad Flippo, a “Roblox” software inventor, died by suicide on Aug. 5, 2024.
The pair had been sweethearts since she was 13, sharing 28 years of marriage and three children. Chad Flippo’s programming work on the mega-successful online game built a substantial fortune. “He did very well,” said her attorney Larry Hutcher, declining to disclose the exact amount.
A friend of the late Chad Flippo suggested Cowboys 4 Angels when Marianne needed a travel companion for a trip to Italy to obtain medication that had grown scarce due to the Russia-Ukraine war. She hired Starr for $27,000, court papers state. Flippo contends she did not realize it was an escort agency, spending the trip chatting and learning about her companion while sharing details of her late husband’s wealth.
Their unconventional relationship continued after Italy. By December, Starr had moved into Flippo’s New York apartment and convinced her to pay over $450,000 to keep him “exclusive,” according to the suit.
“I wanted to give it a fair shot. I wanted to have financial security. I wanted to leave the agency and actually pursue a relationship because I was in love with her despite all the other things,” Starr told The Post on Tuesday.
The alleged scheme intensified during a trip to Atlanta early this year. Flippo, on strong medication following surgery, claims Starr and a Cowboys 4 Angels handler plied her with shots of alcohol and cornered her in a Four Seasons hotel room until she signed a staggering $10 million “Exit Agreement” to buy Starr out of his contract.
When she attempted to wire the full $10 million, her bank recalled the transfer over fraud concerns. “While this should have been a wake-up call for me,” Flippo said in a filing, “it was not.”
Eventually, Flippo claims, Starr and the other employee persuaded her to open a joint account where she transferred $5.95 million. The arrangement collapsed in June when Flippo retained Hutcher to negotiate the remainder of the “Exit Agreement.”
“I looked at this and said, ‘Not even close. This doesn’t pass any smell test by any stretch of the imagination,'” Hutcher said.
The realization triggered a dramatic confrontation at a meeting between Flippo, Hutcher and Starr. “I said to him, ‘You’re nothing more than a common criminal,'” Hutcher recalled. “It got very intense. He tried to pull Marianne out of there. It was a very intense heated meeting once I said that.”
An incensed Starr allegedly threatened to hide the $5.95 million unless Flippo agreed to pay the remaining $4 million. “It was at this point that Marianne finally realized that Starr … had scammed her,” the suit states.
Starr has transferred $5.7 million from the joint account into one under his sole control, the filing alleges. “Starr has been rapidly spending my money,” Flippo claimed in court documents.
Reached by The Post, Starr maintained that much of the $6 million went toward couple’s expenses and charitable donations, with roughly $3 million remaining. He declined to specify where the money was or why it was removed from the joint account.
“Unfortunately, I was not capable or perceptive enough to know these statements were false but, since I loved and trusted Starr, I relied on what he said,” Flippo wrote in her Monday filing.
“I now recognize that I was the victim of a horrendous scheme by Starr who is a sociopath who lacks any conscience,” she added in a court affirmation.
Starr rejected coercion allegations as “not true at all,” insisting the Exit Agreement was Flippo’s idea and that he had not wanted it. He claimed she was abusive toward him, calling their relationship “a wild f—ing ride.”
“You cannot rewrite an entire relationship simply by filing a lawsuit after it ends,” Starr’s attorney Todd Spodek fired back in a statement. “The complaint tells a dramatic story; the evidence will tell the actual one.”
“She now knows that she was the victim of a sinister fraud,” Hutcher said. His court filing asked a judge to intervene as Starr allegedly embarks on a spending frenzy to “dissipate the stolen funds.”
Cowboys 4 Angels, which has reportedly been linked to Sean “Diddy” Combs’s alleged “freak-offs,” did not return a request for comment. The agency is not currently named as a defendant, though Hutcher noted that could change.
Hutcher emphasized the case transcends financial recovery. “This lawsuit is simply about Marianne recovering her dignity and her sense of self,” he shared.