Drew Brees testifies jewelry dealer, once a friend, defrauded him out of millions

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Saints quarterback Drew Brees is missing practice this week to testify in court in San Diego that a jeweler he once considered him a friend defrauded him out of millions of dollars by lying to him about the value of jewelry.

Brees says the jeweler, Vahid Moradi, convinced him they were friends and then persuaded him to spend as much as $8 million at a time on diamonds.

“I cared for him, cared for his wife, cared for his kids,” Brees said. “He became somebody that I referred family and other friends to.”

But the jeweler’s attorney says Brees and Moradi had nothing more than a business relationship, and Brees simply couldn’t stop spending huge amounts of money on jewelry.

“They were not friends. Vahid Moradi was Mr. Brees’s friendly jeweler,” attorney Pete Ross said. “Drew Brees has an obsession for jewelry. He was drawn in like an addict with a drug.”

At issue is whether Moradi misled Brees about the true value of the jewelry he was buying, or whether Moradi was simply running a profitable business selling expensive jewelry to a millionaire who had the money and was willing to spend it. The trial will continue into next week.