It was a chance encounter that would prove costly. When Dr. Mark Sawusch, a wealthy-but-troubled Malibu eye surgeon first met yoga gurus Anthony Flores and Anna Moore at his favorite vegan ice cream parlor in Venice Beach in 2017, the trio quickly forged a spiritual bond while watching the sun set over the waves.
Within weeks, Flores and Moore became Sawsuch’s inseparable companions, moving into his multi-million dollar Malibu beach house and becoming his friends, assistants and confidantes as he struggled with mental illness and alcoholism. Flores said they did it because of an almost instantaneous attachment he had with the doctor, a man he sensed needed his help. “When Mark and I met for the first time, I felt a deep soul connection between him and myself, and he felt the same. It’s as if two brothers met for the first time after being separated for lifetimes,” Flores said in a deposition he gave as part of a civil suit brought by the doctor’s family after his untimely death at age 57 in 2018.
“ “I essentially would spend my life being of great service to Mark doing whatever he needed to do in exchange for the promise of a third of the estate and the beach house.””
— Anthony Flores, during a 2019 deposition.
But Flores admitted he and Moore only agreed to become Sawusch’s constant helpers and aides without pay after reaching a secret financial agreement — a co …