Gabby Petito’s Parents Add Laundrie Attorney To Lawsuit: Court

SARASOTA COUNTY, FL — The parents of Gabby Petito, who was killed by her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, want to add New York-based attorney Steven Bertolino as a defendant in a civil lawsuit against the Laundrie family.

Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt filed a motion in a Florida court Tuesday to amend their complaint against Christopher and Roberta Laundrie, Brian’s parents, to include Bertolino, who frequently spoke for the family after Gabby Petito went missing.

Petito was killed at the hands of Brian Laundrie in August 2021 at a Wyoming campsite while they were on a cross-country trip. He later took his own life, shooting himself in the head in a Sarasota County park in September of that year. His remains and a handwritten confession to killing his fiancée were found in October 2021.

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Her parents sued the Laundries for intentional infliction of emotional distress and claimed they knew that their daughter was dead and where her body was during a national search for her. The case will go before a jury next summer.

In their amended complaint, Petito’s parents claim that Bertolino also knew their daughter was dead.

Laundrie’s parents and Bertolino “knew of the mental suffering and anguish of Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt in not knowing the well-being or location of their daughter, and further knew that such mental suffering and anguish increased each day that Gabrielle Petito was missing,” the attorney for Petito’s parents wrote. “Christopher Laundrie, Roberta Laundrie and Steven Bertolino further knew that they could prevent such additional mental suffering and aguish of Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt by disclosing what they knew about the well-being and location of the remains of Gabrielle Petito, yet they repeatedly refused to do. In doing so, Christopher Laundrie, Roberta Laundrie and Steven Bertolino acted with malice or great indifference to the rights of Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt.”

In a separate case, a Sarasota County judge last week awarded Petito’s parents $3 million in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against Brian Laundrie’s estate.