Clayton Morris, who was a Fox and Friends host for years, has left the country with his family amid a litany of lawsuits alleging he defrauded real estate investors.
Morris, 42, moved his family from their $1.4 million home in New Jersey to a resort town in Portugal. In an email to IndyStar, Morris’ wife, 40-year-old Natali Morris, blamed their Indiana business partner Bert Whalen and his company, Oceanpointe. She said he would keep fighting the more than two dozen lawsuits from abroad.
“We have and continued to take responsibility for all of our legal challenges that came from our relationship with Oceanpointe. We have answered all of our attorney general requests in all states. We have answered all lawsuits,” Natali Morris said.
“We have not run from anything,” she added. “We continue to show up for this until the last lawsuit is dismissed and it is clear that we neither had the money from Oceanpointe investors nor did we defraud anyone.”
Despite the civil lawsuits, no criminal charges have been lodged against Morris or Whalen. Investors have accused Morris of running a Ponzi scheme. They said they were sold homes in troubled Indianapolis neighborhoods with the promise of rehabbing the properties and finding tenants while the investors would simply collect the rent checks. But those investors say that the rehabs didn’t happen or were superficial.
They also accuse the duo of providing fake leases and sending rent checks even though the houses were unoccupied.
Morris has fulsomely denied that he was taking part in fraud. He said he simply referred potential investors to Whalen and was upset to learn about the poor living conditions of the properties.
Natali Morris said the accusations have taken a toll on her husband, contributing to their move out of the country
“Watching him endure this has felt like what I would imagine it is like to watch him endure chemotherapy,” Natali Morris said. “I wish I could take it from him. I wish I could fix it.”
“He began to withdraw emotionally and it was hard on our family. We both knew that we had to make a change if we wanted to survive,” she added.
Morris appeared on Fox and Friends from 2008 to 2017.
