The widow of a computer programmer who helped build “Roblox” has filed a lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court accusing a male escort of manipulating her out of nearly $6 million.
Marianne Flippo, 49, says Gregg Starr, 38, told her he loved her and that the only way they could be together was for her to pay off his $10 million contract with the escort agency Cowboys 4 Angels. She says she believed him.
“Unfortunately, I was not capable or perceptive enough to know these statements were false but, since I loved and trusted Starr, I relied on what he said,” Flippo wrote in the filing, submitted Monday.
Flippo, who has a severe genetic medical condition, met Starr through Cowboys 4 Angels, which markets itself as offering “straight elite male companions for women” and has been featured on the Showtime series “Gigolos.”
How it started
Flippo’s husband, Chad Flippo, a computer programmer who created and patented key software for “Roblox,” took his own life on Aug. 5, 2024. He and Marianne had been together since she was 13 and were married 28 years, raising three children.
Months after his death, Flippo needed to travel to Italy for medication that had become scarce because of the Russia-Ukraine war. She doesn’t speak Italian and, on the recommendation of a friend of her late husband, hired Starr through Cowboys 4 Angels for $27,000 to accompany her, according to the suit. She says she didn’t realize at the time that the company was an escort agency, and that she confided in Starr about her husband’s fortune during the trip.
The two kept seeing each other, and Starr moved into Flippo’s New York apartment in December after persuading her to pay more than $450,000 to keep him
