The fitness influencer turned Christian leader who Texas authorities said scammed customers seeking to purchase curated fitness and nutrition plans is paying $400,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by the state, according to court documents.

Brittany Dawn Davis, the influencer from North Texas who the Texas Attorney General’s Office claimed in the lawsuit scammed her social media followers, has agreed to the payment broken down into $300,000 in civil penalties and $100,000 in restitution, according to the court documents. Davis “admits wrongdoing” but says she was “overwhelmed by the number of customers who purchased programs from her website,” according to the settlement documents filed in a Dallas County court.

Davis did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment submitted via her website.

Davis and the state agreed to the settlement through mediation on April 25, according to letters from the mediator and the attorney general’s office to the court. She will have three years to pay the penalties and restitution and will not be required to pay the $131,320 in attorney fees levied against her if she complies with the permanent injunctions included in the document.

Court documents say the settlement does not prevent private citizens from filing lawsuits against Davis.

Davis was accused in the Deceptive Trade Practices Act lawsuit filed by the Texas Attorney General’s Office in February 2022 of scamming followers on her Instagram, YouTube and TikTok accounts where she falsely advertised she would sell them customized fitness and nutrition plans, according to the suit. Davis charged her customers anywhere between $92 and $300 for the plans.

But, the lawsuit alleged, Davis actually only provided generic plans to most customers. Some customers reported in complaints that the diet plans they were sent did not contain adequate nutrition and 14 noted that they chose Davis’ plan because they had eating disorders, something she promised she had “special training to address,” according to the lawsuit. Instead, the customers said the plans worsened their eating disorders.

Under the settlement, Davis agreed to permanent injunctions that prevent her from selling personalized nutrition or fitness assessments, reassessments, coaching check-ins or workout plans unless she will actually provide them. She’s also prohibited from claiming to have any special knowledge or training to address eating disorders unless she has actually acquired it and cannot charge shipping fees for products delivered digitally through email.

If Davis at any point fails to comply with the permanent injunctions, she will be required to immediately pay the full amount due in penalties and restitution along with attorney’s fees, according to the settlement. The payments over the next three years, should Davis comply with the permanent injunctions, will be structured in monthly payments.

The lawsuit

In 2019, after largely ignoring customer complaints that had shown up on her social media platforms, Davis posted a video apologizing to her 250,000 YouTube followers in which she read a statement from her phone apologizing “for any harm that I’ve caused anyone.” She took down her fitness website and said in the video that she needed more help running the program and would give refunds to customers.

Davis also apologized on “Good Morning America,” according to WFAA-TV, saying she was “doing the best that I can to the best of my ability.” She continued to post fitness and diet advice to her approximately 1 million TikTok followers and half-a-million Instagram followers.

Changing the subject

More recently, as a spiritual influencer, Davis has organized Christian retreats including one in Fort Worth in April 2022 where tickets were $125 a piece. She advertised the event as “a gospel centered day with other God-fearing women,” according to her new website, brittany-dawn.com.

The price for the retreat this April went up to $600, according to Dawn’s other website, shelivesfreed.co. That price was a non-refundable “deposit” for the two-day retreat in Broken Bow, Oklahoma.

The shelivesfreed.co website also accepts donations it says go to funding events and a once-a-year private retreat for victims of human trafficking.

On her website, Dawn sells a spiritual devotional ebook for $29.99, advertising in the description that if customers want a physical copy they can have it printed and bound at a printing or office supply store. She also sells photo filters she calls “presets” on the website, with prices ranging from $12 to $35.

A blog on Davis’ website includes entries about Starbucks, a plant-based diet and her favorite Bible passages, though the last post is dated Jan. 9.

On her social media accounts, Davis has changed the subject of her posts from nutrition and fitness to spiritual messages. On her Instagram accounts, posts include videos about how scary movies can invite “demonic activity as the gatekeeper to your house,” updates about fostering children and photos and videos that include Bible verses.

Her YouTube account includes vlogs about a miscarriage she had, Christian sex advice, housing foster children and addressing accusations of a scam involving a GoFundMe started by Davis and her husband for a man experiencing homelessness.

In YouTube videos, TikToks and posts to Reddit, people have questioned where the money was going, many pointing out that the rehab facility where Davis and her husband sent the man identified only as “James” was free.

In a response video the couple posted on YouTube, Brittany Davis’ husband, Jordan Davis, confirmed the facility was free and the money was given to James as spending money because the rehab doesn’t “provide money for cigarettes, for sure. They don’t provide money for clothing. They put a roof over your head and give you food and they put you through their Christian ministry.”

The couple and a woman who said she was James’ sister mentioned in the video that James picked the rehab facility himself because he wanted to be able to smoke cigarettes.

The GoFundMe page, titled “Bless James’s Obedience,” has been taken down, but screenshots showed that at one point the fundraiser had received more than $25,000 in donations.

GoFundMe’s media relations team did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for information on the fundraiser and any complaints or investigations into it.