BY KEN ROSSIGNOL
News and commentary
THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY

Patrick Britton-Harr, who propelled himself into the high-stakes world of chartering private jets and creating a club where members plied him with millions to buy planes that never materialized, which, if purchased, allegedly vanished or were repossessed, has been indicted by the United States Attorney for Maryland. The charges, listed below, include that Britton-Harr set up a fraudulent testing operation for COVID-19 tests as well as a Ponzi scheme for private jet service.

Britton-Harr, who grew up in Annapolis, attempted unsuccessfully to attend the United States Naval Academy and killed a midshipman in 2006 when both men were out for a night of drinking. He was arrested several times for DUI.

In 2021, Britton-Harr donated $1,000 to the campaign of Anne Arundel States Attorney Anne Colt-Leitess, who kept the donation for her re-election bid to retain the prosecutor’s seat she had won back from former State’s Attorney Wes Adams in 2018.

Several dozen civil suits filed in federal district courts in multiple states were filed in recent several years, all very similar to the charges in the federal criminal indictment, with one of them opening with this allegation:
GENERAL ALLEGATIONS.
17. This action is the result of a calculated and continuing scheme undertaken
by Defendant, BRITTON-HARR, and his network of affiliated companies to sell
private aviation memberships and otherwise defraud unsuspecting members out of
their money.
18. Defendant, BRITTON-HARR, through Defendant, AEROVANTI, and its
network of sham companies/ALTER-EGO DEFENDANTS, advertise and promote
private aviation membership(s) under the guise of a tiered membership-based
platform.

Social media links on the Facebook page of Britton-Harr have been removed, with the link to his X account indicating that the account was suspended for violating the service’s terms.

Get Out of Jail Free Card?

REPEAT OFFENDER DWI DRIVER WHO KILLED A MIDSHIPMAN IN FATAL CRASH AND CONVICTED IN ANNE ARUNDEL MIGHT HAVE FIGURED INDEMNIFICATION AGAINST FUTURE PROSECUTION WAS INCLUDED IN HIS THOUSAND-DOLLAR DONATION

Patrick Britton-Harr, of 2 Compromise St, Annapolis, Maryland, donated $1,000.00 to the political campaign of Colt-Leitess. The New York Daily News provided this account of the conviction of Britton-Harr for a fatal drunk-driving crash in 2007: “A day before he was to stand trial on charges of driving drunk at 120 mph on the Baltimore Beltway, a former Annapolis man admitted guilt yesterday in a high-speed drunken-driving crash that occurred a month and a half later and killed his passenger, a Naval Academy midshipman.

From The Washington Examiner

The driver of a car that slammed into a tree, killing a Naval Academy student early Friday morning, had been drinking prior to the crash, Anne Arundel County police said.

Junior midshipman Charles B. Carr, 20, of Edgewater, was a passenger in a BMW driven by 22-year-old Patrick Tormay Britton-Harr, police said. The car was traveling northbound around a curve on Glen Isle Road near Riva Road in Annapolis around 1:30 a.m. Friday, when the driver lost control, hitting four wooden posts before careening head-on into a large tree.

Carr was declared dead on the scene, and evidence indicated both Carr and Tormay Britton-Harr had been drinking prior to the collision, police said.

They obtained a blood sample from Britton-Harr, which will be tested by state police to determine his blood-alcohol level. Charges are pending the investigation.

The Naval Academy issued a statement saying the school family is “deeply saddened by the loss.” Academy spokesman Cmdr. Ed Austin said Britton-Harr was not a Naval Academy midshipman and said he will not know if Carr was in violation of school alcohol policies until after the police investigation.

The Baltimore Sun reported that Carr and Britton-Harr, who knew each other from St. Mary’s, and two others had left an Edgewater bar shortly after 1 a.m. on Nov. 24, 2006. Carr was the only passenger in Britton-Harr’s 1997 BMW 328 IS when he missed a curve on Green Isle Road outside Annapolis, said Deputy State’s Attorney William C. Roessler. The car hit a tree at 55 mph, nearly twice the 30 mph limit, and Carr died at the scene. Roessler said the driver’s blood-alcohol level was 0.17 percent, about twice the legal limit; Carr’s was 0.18 percent.

 

KILLED HIS PAL WHILE DUI AND
GOT NINE MONTHS IN SLAMMER

“I was unaware how my actions affect other people,” Patrick Tormay Britton-Harr, 23, of Pensacola, Fla., told Anne Arundel Circuit Judge Joseph P. Manck before being sentenced to nine months in jail for negligent manslaughter. 

Patrick Britton-Harr is now developing a new charter air club.

The Baltimore Sun reported that Britton-Harr was previously arrested for DWI in Baltimore County before the fatal crash in Anne Arundel that killed Midshipman Charles B. Carr IV.

 

Why didn’t Anne Arundel State’s attorney,
ANNE COLT LEITESS, GIVE the $1,000 CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION BACK TO BRITTON-HARR?

On The Future Of Air Travel
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Patrick Britton-Harr is the Founder and CEO of AeroVanti Air Club. A serial entrepreneur and investor for more than 15 years, Britton-Harr previously founded and led several successful companies in the healthcare and long-term care industries. As an avid recreational pilot, Britton-Harr married his two loves — aviation and entrepreneurship — when he founded AeroVanti Air Club in 2020.

Patrick Britton-Harr Charged with Multimillion-Dollar Medicare Fraud
and Charter Jet Ponzi Schemes

Two indictments were unsealed on May 28, 2025, charging a South Carolina man with defrauding Medicare through a laboratory test scheme during the COVID-19 pandemic and with defrauding customers of his private charter jet company, AeroVanti Inc.

As alleged in the first indictment, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Patrick Britton-Harr, 41, of Charleston, South Carolina, formerly of Annapolis, Maryland, offered COVID-19 screening tests to nursing home patients across the country. Britton-Harr then allegedly fraudulently billed Medicare, through his company Provista Health, for expensive respiratory pathogen panel (RPP) tests for these patients. As alleged, these RPP tests were medically unnecessary, were never ordered by a treating physician as required, and many were never actually performed, including for patients who had died. Through Provista Health, Britton-Harr allegedly caused more than $15 million in fraudulent claims for RPP tests to be submitted to Medicare, for which Medicare paid more than $5 million.

As alleged in the second indictment, Britton-Harr owned and controlled AeroVanti and its affiliated entities. AeroVanti was a private air club that offered members a la carte access to private jets. Britton-Harr allegedly encouraged “Top Gun” members to pay $150,000 upfront to secure block flight hours. In return, Britton-Harr allegedly promised to use their money to purchase specific aircraft, in which the Top Gun members would have a securitized interest. Britton-Harr allegedly recruited nearly 100 Top Gun members, who collectively paid nearly $15 million in upfront payments, to purchase five aircraft. Instead of buying those aircraft, Britton-Harr allegedly misappropriated members’ money for his own personal benefit, including to purchase yachts and jewelry, to pay his living expenses, and to rent a property near Tampa, Florida. As alleged, Britton-Harr then attempted to conceal his fraud by obtaining a $1.5 million loan to purchase one of the aircraft he had already claimed to have purchased with Top Gun member funds by withholding material information from the lender to obtain the loan.

“The defendant allegedly perpetrated two fraud schemes, first exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic to defraud Medicare out of millions of dollars and then stealing millions more from customers of his aviation company, all for his personal benefit,” said Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “These indictments demonstrate the Criminal Division’s commitment to rooting out bad actors who steal from taxpayer-supported health care programs and defraud American consumers.”

“It is unconscionable for someone to defraud the government and others for personal gain, especially as we faced a global health crisis,” said U.S. Attorney Kelly O. Hayes for the District of Maryland. “Britton-Harr showed a total disregard for those who depend on our Medicare system for health care services and for the individuals he scammed through his private-jet company. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is committed to working with our federal law enforcement partners to bring those to justice who break the law and take advantage of others.”

“Patrick Britton-Harr’s repeated crimes reveal a man with no moral compass motivated by pure greed. His deceit and scheming resulted in a staggering amount of loss to American taxpayers and the public,” says Special Agent in Charge William J. DelBagno of the FBI Baltimore Field Office. “He tried to fleece the U.S. government out of millions by taking advantage of a national crisis. After his laboratory testing business failed, Britton-Harr again turned to deception. Time and again, he chose to lie, steal, and deceive. No more. This investigation holds Britton-Harr accountable for his crimes and sends a clear message that the FBI and our partners will not allow such despicable behavior to go unchecked.”

“Individuals who steal from Medicare waste taxpayer dollars and create incisions in the fabric that holds our health care system together,” stated Special Agent in Charge Maureen R. Dixon with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG). “HHS-OIG will continue the pursuit of upholding the integrity, trust, and confidence in federal health care programs, which benefits the people they serve. HHS-OIG, in collaboration with our law enforcement partners, will continuously investigate alleged attempts to defraud these programs.”

“The scope of the alleged fraud is staggering and underscores the extraordinary lengths to which individuals will go to deceive and exploit others under the guise of legitimate business, including private aviation services,” said Special Agent in Charge Greg Thompson of the Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General (DOT-OIG), Mid-Atlantic Region. “The DOT-OIG remains steadfast in its commitment to working in coordination with our law enforcement and prosecutorial partners to pursue those who engage in egregious schemes designed solely for personal enrichment.”

Britton-Harr is charged with five counts of health care fraud and one count of money laundering in the indictment related to his RPP scheme. Additionally, Britton-Harr is charged with six counts of wire fraud in the indictment related to his AeroVanti scheme. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on each wire fraud count and 10 years in prison on each health care fraud and money laundering count. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The FBI, HHS-OIG, and DOT-OIG are investigating the cases.

Trial Attorneys David Peters and Chris Wenger of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew P. Phelps and Ari D. Evans for the District of Maryland are prosecuting the cases.

AINONLINE – Detailed fraud civil litigation in 2023

In a civil suit filed on behalf of AeroVanti clients on May 22, plaintiff attorneys allege that the company engaged in widespread fraud, including running a network of “sham” companies designed to purposely defraud customers and “exaggerating the rapid growth of new members, the number of aircraft in its ‘fleet’, and the significant amount of investor-led funding received to support expansion.”

Detailed allegations include that at any given time no more than three AeroVanti aircraft were airworthy, $3 million obtained from 20 “Top Gun” program customers to acquire and refurbish five Piaggio Avanti P.180s was misdirected to professional sports sponsorships, and that all five of these aircraft “have either since been repossessed or deemed not to be airworthy or in total disrepair.” It concludes that company founder Patrick Britton-Harr “developed an intricate web of deceit through the creation of interrelated entities that are each alter egos of one another.”