One of Stephen Cloobeck’s alleged victims has broken cover to open up about the allegedly threatening phone calls he received thatsparked the billionaire’s arrest.
Mike Farag, 70, who wasallegedly pilfered byCloobeck’s beau Adva Lavie when he invited her over to give her modeling advice, told The California Post about the conversation from January.
He claimed he picked up the phone from an unknown number to an “aggressive” man who allegedly threatened legal action against him if he testified in thePenthouse Pet’s court case.
Cloobeck was arrested after handing himself into a West Hollywood police station on Tuesday, before being released on $300,000 bail.
He has been accused of witness tampering with multiple men who accused Lavie of stealing from them after meeting on dating apps.
Farag said the man who called him was a “bulldog kind of guy” and said he only listened to him without engaging. “[You] let guys like this bark until [they] settle down,” he told The Post.
California's top news, sports and entertainment delivered to your inbox every day.
Farag, an accounting professor at Cal Poly, said the man refused on the phone call to reveal who he was but that he pieced together the facts to realize it was Cloobeck.
He continued: “I was getting these unknown phone calls from a gentleman who is going after me. I don’t know who he is…[he] was aggressive. I told him I would let [law enforcement know] that he called me.”
After the call, he told cops of the incident. On Tuesday, Cloobeck was arrested on four criminal counts, including one felony charge of preventing or dissuading a witness or victim from attending or testifying at a trial or proceeding that named Farag as the victim.
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
