Jack Avery Confronts Ex-Partner in Court Over Alleged Murder-for-Hire Scheme

TikTok influencer Gabriela Gonzalez sat roughly ten feet from her alleged target, singer Jack Avery, in a Los Angeles courtroom Tuesday as a former boyfriend testified against her, detailing her purported animosity toward the pop star amid a bitter child custody dispute. Gonzalez stands accused of conspiring to hire a hit man on the dark web to kill Avery.

Cody Clayburn testified that he began a relationship with Gonzalez in June 2021—around the time prosecutors allege she was plotting with her father, Francisco Gonzalez, and another former boyfriend, Kai Cordrey, to pay an “expert hitman” in cryptocurrency to murder Avery. Clayburn stated he was unaware of the alleged plot until November 2022, when FBI agents raided the Hawaii home he shared with Gonzalez and seized electronic devices. He confronted her after the agents departed.

“I asked her that night what was going on, and she said that her ex, Kai Cordrey, was obsessed with her and wanted to help carry out a plan to get rid of Jack, and that there had been a Bitcoin payment,” Clayburn testified via video at the downtown Los Angeles hearing. “And then she was freaking out, wanted to leave the country, and she said if they opened up her phone, that she would be in prison.”

Under questioning by Avery’s attorney, Clayburn said Gonzalez discussed potentially fleeing to South America, though he could not recall a specific country. “She was just very overwhelmed,” he testified. “She was just worried.”

Gonzalez, 25, watched the proceedings from one end of a long courtroom table, with Avery seated at the other. Wearing a lavender blazer over a matching light purple top, she remained silent as her lawyer informed the judge she would invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and decline to testify.

Gonzalez, her father, and Cordrey were arrested in May and charged with three counts each of conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, and solicitation to commit murder. All have pleaded not guilty. If convicted as charged, they face 25 years to life in state prison, prosecutors said.

Tuesday’s civil court hearing marked the first time Avery and Gonzalez have appeared in court together since her arrest. The hearing, scheduled to continue Wednesday, will determine whether Avery—a member of the 2010s boy band Why Don’t We—can extend his domestic violence restraining order against Gonzalez and whether she can have contact with their seven-year-old daughter via video calls or supervised visits while the criminal case proceeds. In court filings, Gonzalez’s attorney stated she has had no contact with the child since being taken into custody and released on bond.

Clayburn further described the turmoil following the FBI raid. He testified that Gonzalez soon arranged to foster another young girl, close to her daughter’s age, without informing him. Child welfare officials in Hawaii eventually placed the girl, named Isabel, in their home with Clayburn’s consent, but he claimed Gonzalez left the state just two weeks later.

According to Clayburn, Gonzalez’s mother traveled to Hawaii to help care for the two girls while Gonzalez worked as a coach at a summer surf camp. He alleged that Gonzalez and her mother then abruptly departed for Florida with Avery’s daughter without telling him when they would return. Child welfare officials subsequently placed Isabel in Clayburn’s sole custody; when Gonzalez returned approximately two months later, officials removed Isabel from the home entirely.

Clayburn testified that Gonzalez and her family routinely disparaged Avery in front of the child. He said Gonzalez would lower the volume on her phone during Avery’s FaceTime calls with the girl and would “constantly bad-mouth Jack.”

“It bothered me as like it wasn’t fair to [the daughter] to constantly be exposed to that, to make her feel like when she’s with her dad, she’s in trouble or doing something wrong,” he said.

Clayburn’s mother, Paige Clayburn, testified as the second witness. She corroborated that she saw Gonzalez lower the volume during a video call with Avery. When asked why, Paige testified that Gonzalez said she hoped the girl would “get bored,” put down the phone, and walk away.

Paige Clayburn further told the court she saw Gonzalez transport the child in vehicles without a car seat. She described a contentious custody exchange in which Gonzalez allegedly tried to pull the girl by her legs from Avery’s arms after becoming upset that he had arrived with a friend. Paige said Avery remained calm during the confrontation, which contributed to her growing doubts about Gonzalez’s claims that he was the problem.

In a statement to Rolling Stone, Gonzalez’s criminal attorney, Elliot Zarabi, questioned why Avery did not seek a domestic violence restraining order years ago. In his petition, Avery told the court he was first notified by the FBI in 2021 “that a hit man was hired to kill me.”

“Mr. Avery is using this situation to reignite his career as best as he can, and he’s using his daughter to do that,” Zarabi said. He said his client has no issue keeping her distance from Avery; “she just wants to be able to see her child. That’s all she wants. A child that’s been with her, pretty much, her entire life, except for maybe twice a year here and there. She just wants to see her child in this situation.”

Avery’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. During Tuesday’s hearing, Avery, 27, turned and blew a kiss to a woman accompanying him in the front row. He wore black jeans, a white collared shirt, and a green sweater.

In a prior filing seeking visitation for Gonzalez, Zarabi argued his client “played a comparatively limited role” in the alleged murder plot, with the “primary operational aspects” purportedly carried out by Cordrey. “Much of the evidence against Ms. Gonzalez derives from statements made by Cordrey himself, a charged co-defendant, with every incentive to shift blame and minimize his own conduct,” Zarabi wrote. He claimed prosecutors lacked “direct evidence showing that Ms. Gonzalez hired a hit man, negotiated a killing, transmitted cryptocurrency, communicated with undercover operatives, or directly engaged in operational planning.”

Prosecutors, however, argue that Gonzalez, her father, and Cordrey viewed Avery as “the obstacle to their desired control” over the child. Their conduct “escalated from family-court litigation and efforts to discredit Jack, to surveillance and attempted third-party intimidation, and ultimately to a funded murder-for-hire plot designed to remove Jack permanently,” Deputy District Attorney Alexander Bott wrote in a July 22 court filing obtained by Rolling Stone.

Cordrey’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment. Francisco Gonzalez’s lawyer, Karen L. Goldstein, said in a statement that the case “has been sensationalized by the prosecution, who has repeatedly made arguments that are exaggerated or simply untrue.”

“This weaving of a biased, and often false, narrative appears to be an effort to discredit Mr. Gonzalez’s character and to deny him his right to a fair trial,” she said. “What the prosecution claims happened, and the truth of what actually happened, are two very different things. We will continue to pursue justice for Mr. Gonzalez and trust that a jury will see the truth.”

Prosecutors allege that between October 2020 and May 2021, Gonzalez “repeatedly discussed wanting Jack Avery dead” and enlisted Cordrey to help. They say the pair discussed using bitcoins on the dark web and hoped to make the hit “appear to be an accident.”

According to the felony complaint, Gonzalez’s father allegedly sent Cordrey $10,000 in April 2021 to find and hire someone to kill Avery. Prosecutors say Cordrey moved the money into a Gemini cryptocurrency account and began communicating with a dark web murder-for-hire account under the alias “LizardKing69.” On May 22, 2021, Cordrey allegedly identified Avery as the target, provided a Los Angeles address for his location, and said Avery could be killed by whatever method was easiest, including a shooting or staged incident.

The account administrator allegedly demanded another $4,000 on June 4, prompting Cordrey to return to Francisco for more money. Days later, Cordrey allegedly pressed for Avery to be killed within a couple of days.

Prosecutors say the plot continued into September 2021, when an undercover FBI agent posing as a hit man spoke with Cordrey by phone. Cordrey allegedly identified Avery as the target and discussed payment and proof of death. In a later call, Cordrey allegedly said Gonzalez wanted Avery killed and that Francisco could pay for it. Prosecutors say Francisco then contacted the undercover agent using the password “Bullrun” and discussed a previous bitcoin payment.

More than a year later, on Oct. 20, 2022, Gonzalez allegedly spoke with Cordrey on a recorded call about the supposed hit man and “how to respond to the threat of exposure,” according to the complaint. She also allegedly said she could talk to her father because “he had been handling most of it.”

Gonzalez’s lawyer said Tuesday that Francisco might be called as a rebuttal witness for his daughter on Wednesday.

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