Global Courant 2023-04-25 10:50:53
A Getty heiress’s years-long efforts to recover thousands of dollars she loaned to journalist and Twitter influencer Yashar Ali have intensified as a collection agency now seeks to seize his future income and money he receives through online payment platforms like Venmo.
According to documents filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Ali owes more than $200,000 in loans made to him by Ariadne Getty, a philanthropist and granddaughter of oil magnate J. Paul Getty. The online journalist’s debt has exploded after years of default.
Getty loaned Ali approximately $180,000 between 2012 and 2014. Ali has not disputed that Getty lent him the money, nor that he defaulted on the original loan after paying only $1,000.
After years of few payments, Getty sued him in 2017 for the outstanding money plus interest. In 2019, a judgment was made against Ali for $166,429. The amount remains “entirely unpaid” and, with interest, stands at $232,769, according to a motion filed Friday.
The collection agency is asking LA Superior Court for the authority to seize money sent to Ali on various online platforms, including PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, GoFundMe and Square. The collection agency also wants “all rights to future payments” that Ali can get from his newsletter on Substack; he earns income from Twitter, where he has more than 700,000 followers; as well as future payments he may receive from freelance journalism he publishes with Huffpost, MSNBC News or New York magazine, according to the filing.
Neither Ali nor his lawyers responded to a message asking for comment.
Ali worked in Democratic politics, including for Governor Gavin Newsom, before rising to social media prominence. His rise to “Twitter power broker” status was the subject of a widely read profile in Los Angeles magazine stating, “Part investigative reporter, part gossip columnist, and part trusted confidant, Ali is a unique twenty-first-century media personality.”
The 2021 article also mentioned Ali’s “tangled relationships” with celebrities in the Golden State, including Getty’s unpaid loans, stating that “for a journalist who puts so much of his private life into the public sphere, he is secretive and resists strict supervision.”
After publication, Ali sued the magazine for libel. Earlier this year, Los Angeles magazine attorneys convinced a judge to strike out two of Ali’s three causes of action in the lawsuit, and the attorneys are now seeking more than $40,000 in legal fees from Ali. The remainder of the case is pending.
While Getty filed suit and secured the verdict against Ali, the verdict has been “assigned” or transferred to a third party, Capital Asset Protection.
Arden Silverman, the owner of Calabasas-based Capital Asset Protection, echoed the Los Angeles magazine article, telling The Times that it was “more difficult than average” to track down Ali. Ali has no property and, according to court documents, has no “known local bank accounts.”
“He seems to throw more shade than your traditional person,” Silverman said. “Despite his social media persona, he’s been a bit harder to pin down his whereabouts,” adding, “‘Hiding in plain sight’ might be a good nickname.”
In the lawsuit, Silverman’s company is also trying to prevent Paypal, Venmo, Square, GoFundMe, Zelle, Huffpost, MSNBC News, New York magazine and X Corp, Twitter’s parent company, from sending Ali “any compensation” — essentially being a distraction. income until the debt is paid off.
Silverman said he was less familiar with the underlying dispute that led to the verdict against Ali and was instead focused on simply getting the money now owed.
“By the time it gets to me, all there is is a piece of paper saying that A is guilty of B,” Silverman said. A hearing on the motion is scheduled for July 5.
