The life of David Bunevacz seemed too perfect to be real.
The dashing international athlete, who competed for UCLA and the Philippines in the decathlon, drove about Los Angeles in his yellow Lamborghini, coming home to host extravagant parties at the house previously held by Kylie Jenner with his wife, a former model, and daughter, a model.
To his pals, he was a wealthy, jet-setting businessman who graciously included them in his profitable agreements. Starting in 2010, he became engaged in the lucrative marijuana industry.
However, those pals discovered last year to their shock that Bunevacz’s opulent living was in fact fictitious.
He was born in Los Angeles, the son of a Hungarian restaurant owner named Joseph Bunevacz and a Filipina nurse named Filomena who immigrated to California in the late 1960s. From then, Bunevacz’s astounding ascent and fall started.
The young David was a standout athlete in high school, achieving greatness in the high jump, javelin, and hurdles.
He later participated in the Southeast Asian Games for the Philippines in 1997, finishing second in the decathlon.
Bunevacz relocated to Manila, where he began co-hosting a sports and travel television program and picking up small acting roles.
In 2006, Bunevacz built a cosmetic surgery clinic in Manila, advertising with a huge billboard that said “Miss Ugly No More.” This is where he met his wife Jessica Rodriguez, a model and talent manager.
The enterprise eventually turned sour, though: according to The Los Angeles Times, Bunevacz was charged with defrauding investors, banged up, threatened with a pistol, and forced to sign over his Porsche Cayenne Turbo.
He left the nation with his wife, returning to California.
When Bunevacz related the tale of their departure to a friend, he reportedly compared it to a combination of Jason Bourne and Indiana Jones, as reported by the newspaper.
In Los Angeles, Bunevacz looked to be prospering.
His wife authored a guidebook for what she referred to as “refined ladies” on how to “marry successfully.”
He initiated an ambitious scheme to get tickets for the Beijing Olympics in 2008, teaming up with Atlanta ticket broker Gene Hammett.
The affable and outgoing billionaire charmed Hammett, inviting him to see Usain Bolt set the 100-meter sprint world record in his suite at the Birds Nest stadium.
For $2.9 million, Hammett purchased 17,000 of the seats Bunevacz promised him he could get him for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Tickets were never delivered.
Hammett lost his house after being sued and filing for bankruptcy.
According to Hammett’s attorney Filippo Marchino, Bunevacz went through Hammett’s money while he was away and spent it at Tiffany’s, Bloomingdales, Neiman Marcus, Giorgio Armani, and Hermès, as well as a Ritz Carlton spa in Georgia and the Bacara resort in Santa Barbara.
Bunevacz received large deposits into his Bellagio casino account in Las Vegas, including $125,000 right before Christmas.
Another Hammett attorney, Damon Rogers, said that the man “was basically burning money as soon as he received it.”
Four years later, the matter was resolved for just $325,000.
Bunevacz’s fraud continued in the meanwhile.
Around 2010, he came up with a new con, promising investors the “opportunity” to engage in a business he said was importing vape pens from China and reselling them in the United States at a substantial profit.
He persuaded scores of colleagues and acquaintances, including his dentist, to make investments.
The money wasn’t used for the company.
A $218,000 party was held for his daughter Breanna’s 16th birthday.
It was held at Brentwood’s Skirball Cultural Center and featured the artist A Boogie wit da Hoodie.
The exclusive showjumping circles she frequented provided her father access to other individuals he defrauded. Her father purchased her a $330,000 horse called Vondel.
Breanna, the mother of Bella and Gigi Hadid, appeared on the TV show “Making a Model with Yolanda Hadid” as she carved out a career as a model.
He hosted his wife a grandiose dinner at Nobu in Malibu in January 2019 and had “Crazy Rich Asians”-inspired posters made to advertise the event.
Bunevacz resumed his shopping binges to jewelry shops in Beverly Hills, where he spent $46,500 on two Hermès Birkin bags and three bracelets in addition to $209,500 on a pair of diamond earrings and $195,000 on a diamond ring.
A search warrant was finally obtained by Geoffrey Elliott, a detective with the Sheriff’s Department working in Chatsworth on a fraud squad, to enter the home in Calabasas.
Detectives acquired folders with evidence they may use to charge Bunevacz.
He was detained in April and admitted to fraud in July.
He was given a 17-year jail term in November and forced to pay back $35 million that he had stolen from more than 100 investors.
Any of his victims are reportedly unlikely to ever see their money again.
The inquiry was joined by the Internal Revenue Service, Securities and Exchange Commission, and FBI.
Elliott described Bunevacz as a “peripatetic grifter” who fabricated financial documents to defraud investors of millions of dollars in his plea for an arrest order.
In November, U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer sentenced him and opted to impose a longer term than what the prosecution had suggested because she believed he had shown no remorse for the lives he had destroyed.
She said that his goal was to support a lavish lifestyle for himself and his family, which they flaunted on social media.
I don’t think Mr. Bunevacz regrets anything other than being caught, to put it mildly.
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