On Monday, three alleged creditors of Jadelle Jewelry and Diamonds—the jeweler that’s been linked to convicted criminal Jona Rechnitz and his wife Rachel —filed a petition in Central District of California federal court to force the company into Chapter 7.

Jadelle, a Beverly Hills, Calif.–based private jeweler founded in 2017, was known for its celebrity clientele, including Kim Kardashian West.

According to the petition, First International Diamond claims Jadelle owes it $2 million; Peter Marco LLC maintains it’s owed $7.7 million; and Victor Franco Noval alleges he is owed $5.8 million.

Noval’s lawyer, Ronald Richards, told JCK that the appointment of a bankruptcy trustee will “seek to recover the funds Jona transferred from the entities to himself and family members.”

In February, Noval filed a complaint against Rechnitz and Jadelle in Los Angeles court, which claimed that Rechnitz never fully paid back a $2.9 million loan he used to finance the company.

The complaint further alleged that Rechnitz had taken as much as $15 million in goods on memo from Southern California diamond dealers and has not returned nor paid for them.

According to the New York Post, in early March, Rechnitz’s lawyers filed a motion that asked for Noval’s case to be stayed, as “there is a parallel criminal investigation related to the allegations at issue.”

Rechnitz’s history includes a 2016 guilty plea to honest services wire fraud in New York federal court, part of a widely publicized case that involved alleged bribery of public and union officials. After prosecutors called Rechnitz an important cooperating witness, he was sentenced in December to five months in jail and five months home confinement. On March 17, he filed an appeal of that sentence.

Rechnitz’s last listed counsel did not return a request for comment by publication time. As of Wednesday, Jadelle had not filed a response to the petition.

(Image via: Facebook)

Rob Bates

JCK News Director