Ex-‘Fox & Friends’ host Clayton Morris sued over real estate deals

Former “Fox & Friends Weekend” host Clayton Morris is being sued in an Indianapolis federal court over an alleged Ponzi scheme involving property investment. 

Morris departed Fox News in 2017 to become a real estate promoter with associate Bert Whalen of Oceanpointe Investments, based in Indianapolis. 

The two men are alleged to have misled at least 35 buyers and renters on the true conditions of distressed properties. Morris used web-based seminars and YouTube videos to lure potential investors. 

“I have not found one instance and in talking with my clients or other potential clients and speaking with other real estate investors that they actually received what they were promised,” said attorney Jynell Berkshire, according to CBS4 Indy.

 

Berkshire added that she estimates the total cost to buyers could be hundreds of millions of dollars in what is “nothing more than a Ponzi scheme.”

“Clayton is very nice, likable, comes across as a very family, wholesome guy who has made rags to riches in real estate,” Berkshire noted. “They believed him, and they believed he had a turnkey system that ‘I can make passive income in real estate while I sleep.'”

The attorney representing Whalen pushed back.

“Ponzi scheme is the most inaccurate description of Mr. Whalen and Oceanpointe’s business that I can possibly imagine,” John Tompkins said. “Properties were being rehabilitated. Buyers who were given correct information … were told that some properties were in a rehab condition, wouldn’t have rents coming in until the rehabs were finished.”

Morris’s attorney, David Hensel, pointed the finger at Whalen. 

“The Morris family and Morris Invest have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Clayton and Morris Invest deny all allegations of wrongdoing,” he said in a statement to the Indianapolis Star.

 

Morris was co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekend” from 2008 to 2017, primarily with Dave Briggs and Alisyn Camerota. Both Briggs and Camerota are now at CNN. 

 

A Fox News spokeswoman told The Hill on Wednesday that the cable news network had “absolutely no knowledge” of the fraud accusations against Morris.