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Nine months after suing Brian Laundrie‘s parents, Gabby Petito‘s family has filed a motion to include the Laundries’ lawyer in the lawsuit, as well, Rolling Stone has confirmed. The lawsuit claims Laundrie’s parents knew their son killed Petito while she was still missing and accused the Laundries of helping him elude investigators.
In the new motion, filed Tuesday at a Sarasota County, Florida, circuit court, Petito’s parents, Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt, claim Steven Bertolino, an attorney who also acted as a spokesperson for the Laundrie family during the 2021 search for Petito, also knew Petito was dead when he offered a public statement of support for her search on behalf of the Laundries. They allege that he, like the Laundries, acted with “malice or great indifference” to their anguish during the search for their daughter.
On Sept. 14, 2021, Bertolino issued a statement on behalf of the Laundries saying, in part, “It is our hope that the search for Miss Petito is successful and that Miss Petito is reunited with her family.” The Petito family claims in a proposed amended complaint that Bertolino knew at the time that Petito was already dead. In a statement provided to Rolling Stone from the Petito family’s lawyer, they say Bertolino’s statement, under the circumstances, was “insensitive, cold-hearted and outrageous.” The statement continued, ” Thus, after much consideration, the parents of Gabby Petito filed a Motion for Leave of Court this afternoon asking the court for permission to file a Second Amended Complaint to add Steven Bertolino as a defendant in the action….Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt are seeking justice and accountability for the loss of their daughter and the attendant harm caused them.”
In the original lawsuit, filed in March, Petito’s parents said Christopher and Roberta Laundrie’s “shocking, atrocious and utterly intolerable” actions of causing them to “suffer pain and suffering, mental anguish” and the “loss of capacity for enjoyment of life.”
The lawsuit provided a timeline, from Petito’s parents’ perspective, of the van-life couple’s days leading up to Gabby’s murder — believed to be on Aug. 29, 2021 — as well as the Laundrie family’s actions after Brian returned home to Florida without Petito.
According to the lawsuit, Brian — in possession of both his phone and Gabby’s — sent text messages between the two phones to give the illusion that Gabby was still alive, and later texted Schmidt from Gabby’s phone pretending to be her daughter; Brian made the mistake of referring to Petito’s grandfather as “Stan,” his real name, instead of a less formal moniker.
However, the most damning accusation — and the basis for the lawsuit — was the Petito family’s claim that Brian informed his parents of Gabby’s death on Aug. 30, the day after it occurred. On Sept. 2, the lawsuit alleged, the Laundrie family put Bertolino on retainer.
The Laundries then cut off all communication to a Petito family that was desperately seeking information about their missing daughter. “In an effort to avoid any contact with Nichole Schmidt, on or about September 10, 2021, Roberta Laundrie blocked Nichole Schmidt on her cellular phone such that neither phone calls nor text could be delivered, and she blocked her on Facebook,” the lawsuit stated.
Before naming Bertolino in the suit, Petito’s parents already claimed that the Laundries issued their Sept. 14 statement through him “hoping” for a successful search when they were already aware that Gabby had been murdered. Soon after that statement, the Laundries instructed all contacts to communicate with them through Bertolino.
“While Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt were desperately searching for information concerning their daughter, [the Laundries] were keeping the whereabouts of Brian Laundrie secret, and it is believed they were making arrangements for him to leave the country,” the lawsuit alleged.
After the lawsuit was filed in March, Bertolino said in a statement, “As I have maintained over the last several months, the Laundries have not publicly commented at my direction which is their right under the law. Assuming everything the Petitos allege in their lawsuit is true, which we deny, this lawsuit does not change the fact that the Laundries had no obligation to speak to Law Enforcement or any third-party including the Petito family. This fundamental legal principle renders the Petito’s claims to be baseless under the law.”
The lawsuit came two months after the FBI closed their investigation into the 22-year-old Petito’s death. After finding Laundrie’s remains in November — he died by suicide from a single gunshot wound to the head in a Florida nature reserve — investigators uncovered a notebook where Laundrie admitted to killing Petito.
Petito and Schmidt are seeking damages exceeding $30,000. Bertolino did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This article was updated on 12/06 at 4:27 p.m. to reflect the addition of attorney Steven Bertolino as a defendant in the lawsuit.
