Online pages of the law firm representing Brian Laundrie have been flooded with bad reviews following the Federal Bureau of Investigation announcement that Gabby Petito, his fiancée, died by homicide.
On Wednesday, the Yelp page of Bertolino Steven PPC had nine reviews, mostly all negative, the oldest one being from Friday.
“Advising a person not to corporate with police who’re searching for a missing girl,” one review reads. “You should be held responsible and chargeable as well. Amazes me how scum like you sleep at night.”
“Just as disgusting as Brian and the laundrie family. Just as guilty as the laundrie family,” read another from Tuesday. “Where’d you send brian off to? Where did you advise his parents to send him to?”
“You could have chosen morality and justice over letter of the law and been a hero but now you have to live with this hell on your conscience forever,” read one review that received more than 60 nods of approval from other Yelp users.
The Bertolino Steven PPC Yelp page wasn’t the only platform of theirs that was targeted by people following the Petito case. The profile for Steven Bertolino on Avvo, a platform for people to find legal help and lawyers, was flooded with similar reviews.
“My girlfriend went ‘missing’ and my parents hired Steven to represent me. Told me to keep quite and he could make it all go away,” wrote one user, who left the only 5-star review on the page. “Gave me a few days head start to make my way to Venezuela via Mexico. I can’t come back to the US but hey, at least I’m a free man.”
“Good luck getting any cases in the future! You better hope Brian’s family has lots of money to keep paying you, because you won’t get any other clients,” wrote another.
Some were not as explicit in their reviews about the lawyer being linked to Laundrie, but they were written in the last few days and with a note of sarcasm, likely in response to the Petito case.
“As I’ve given the police. Zero. He tells me to stay quiet and if he doesn’t know anything than it’s like it never happened and told me to do the same. Except he told me I have to stay quiet, hide, and seek asylum,” wrote one reviewer on Monday.
As of Wednesday, a note on the Avvo profile, accompanied by a green check, reads: “We have not found any instances of professional misconduct for this lawyer.”
Meanwhile, the lawyer representing the Petito family, Richard Stafford, served a cease and desist order to get Bertolino’s office “to remove Gabby Petito’s picture from (its) Yelp page.”
“The (Petito) family tried to remove their daughter’s picture from (your) page and were informed that only the business owner can add or remove pictures,” the letter reads.
As of Wednesday evening, there was not a photo of Petito on the page.
By Wednesday evening, Yelp issued an “unusual activity” label on the firm’s page, which the platform does in the event of a company being flooded with possibly inauthentic reviews after allegations of negative actions come to public light.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Bertolino’s office for comments.
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H/T New York Post