A couple accused of stealing nearly $3 million from a doctor while pretending to be a caregiver doused him with ketamine and turned his mansion into a five-star drug spa before dying of an overdose have allegedly been accused of stealing nearly $3 million from a married couple.
Anthony Flores, 46, and his ex-girlfriend Anna Moore, 39, are said to have manipulated David Sauch’s vulnerability to gain control over his life and finances.
A grand jury indicted the couple on Dec. 15 on multiple counts, including conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy to engage in money laundering, according to court documents.
Now, extraordinary testimonies from those who worked at the doctor’s Malibu beach house reveal how Flores and Moore isolated Sauch from his family in Florida while keeping him on a drug cocktail and allegedly embezzling his money.
One of half a dozen therapists who were ordered to provide Sawusch, who was a successful $60 million fortune investor, with up to six massages a day. Los Angeles Times that the couple “kept him sedated”.
Yoga instructor Anna Moore, 39, (left) and ex-boyfriend hairstylist Anthony Flores, 46, are accused of stealing $3 million from bipolar doctor David Sauch, 57 (right)
In addition to being an eye surgeon, Sawusch was a successful investor with a $60 million fortune, but he turned over his power of attorney to Flores so he could bail him out of prison.
Flores and Moore allegedly transformed Sawusch’s Malibu beach house into a five-star drug spa
Flores, a hairstylist from Fresno, California, and Moore, a yoga instructor who lives in Monterrey, Mexico, moved into the eye surgeon’s house just days after they met at an ice cream parlor off Venice Beach in June 2017.
Sawusch, 57, had conducted his medical practice for more than 30 years, but suffered from severe bipolar disorder and was unable to get surgery after burning his hands the year before, according to a civil suit filed by his mother in Los Angeles.
Prosecutors said he was voluntarily taken to hospital several times between 2015 and 2017.
Shortly after the three met, Sawusch had a severe mental breakdown and was arrested on multiple occasions on charges including public intoxication and vandalism.
In Twin Towers Jail in downtown Los Angeles, he was chained to a bench where he talked to himself, sang, cursed prison guards, and refused medication.
At the time, Flores allegedly suggested to Sawusch that he be given power of attorney so that he could withdraw enough money from his accounts to pay him bail.
Sausch did so despite kicking Flores and Moore out of his home in a fit of rage just three weeks after they moved in, calling them “white-collar tax fraud criminals who tried to steal my Tesla and Betty,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
But after Flores bails him out of jail, he invites them back to the beach house.
The hairstylist hired a group of massage therapists and more than 20 housekeepers, handymen and other staff to work in Sawusch’s 1,200-square-foot home, telling them he wanted it to be like a five-star spa, sources told the LA Times.
By early 2018, the doctor was getting up to six massages a day of about two hours each, with talking discouraged.
Records show that the assistants worked in an office managing Sawusch’s medical, legal, and financial affairs as well as Flores and Moore’s window-cleaning business in Fresno.
Extraordinary testimonies from those who worked at the doctor’s Malibu beach house revealed how Flores and Moore isolated Sawusch from his family in Florida while keeping him on a cocktail of drugs and embezzling his cash.
Flores and Moore deny the charges, and the former attorney, Ambrosio E. Rodriguez, it is not true that Souch was “seduced and deceived” by the couple
Prosecutors said that during this time, Flores and Moore were transferring money from Sawusch’s accounts to their personal accounts.
Some fueled their taste for LA nightlife and threw an Oscars watching party at the Waldorf-Astoria Beverly Hills.
She also funded the couple’s “shopping trips,” according to testimony from massage therapist Dora Peterson.
Authorities said the couple banned his friends and county filers from making visits and told his mother not to try to contact her son.
They also allegedly took Sawusch to a doctor for weekly infusions of ketamine for depression and back pain — and gave him marijuana, psilocybin mushrooms and LSD, prosecutors said.
Two weeks before Sawusch’s death, the shaman couple invites Alan to his house for an acid trip for Mother’s Day.
Flores testified that he supplied liquid LSD in a vial with a dropper for sublingual dosing.
Prosecutors said that while Sawusch was under the influence of LSD, Flores switched the two-step authentication on a brokerage firm account to his own number so he could access the $60 million account.
Prosecutors said Suche kicked the couple out of his home again after LSD caused his mental state to deteriorate further.
When LSD causes Sawusch’s mental state to deteriorate, he kicks Moore and Flores out of his house again.
But they seemed to anticipate it and Flores and some assistants spent several days beforehand packing boxes, according to testimony from Jessica McDermott, another massage therapist.
Flores also added cameras to the home surveillance system and used them to watch Sawusch’s final decline before his death.
He spent several days in a daze, “toss around” and in “a frenzy,” according to employees who worked there and text messages from Flores.
At one point, the cook on duty told Flores that Sausch had left his bedroom long enough to clean it up. ‘I did well!’ Flores told him. “Watching all of this is really interesting.”
Most of the footage of his final days is gone, but the three surviving hours show Sawusch dying on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend in 2018.
It has not been publicly released, but Adam Streisand, the Los Angeles attorney for the Sawusch family, called it “the most horrific thing I’ve had to witness in my career.”
Sawusch was a successful eye surgeon before his bipolar disorder and substance abuse took hold
The Los Angeles County coroner found the death to be caused by ketamine and alcohol intoxication.
But the pathologist who performed the autopsy found that ketamine and alcohol “do not contribute significantly to the direct cause of death” and that Sawusch died as a result of two heart conditions: an aneurysm and a congenitally narrowed coronary artery.
Flores and Moore returned to Sawusch’s beach house after his death, according to court documents, and allegedly withdrew large sums of money from his bank accounts.
In January, the FBI arrested Flores in Verizon and Moore a few days later in Houston. They pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors argue that the couple used ketamine, massage, and marijuana to subdue Sawusch and prevent them from finding out they were stealing millions of dollars from him.
But Flores’ attorney, Ambrosio E. Rodriguez, said it was not true that Sausch was “seduced and deceived” by the couple.
He suggested that prosecutors were overestimating the mental incapacity of Such, whom he described as “a very successful, financially savvy person who was in the middle of a midlife crisis and enjoyed having my client and Anna in his home.”
Both Flores and Moore were denied bail and are being held in separate units at the US Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles awaiting trial.
