Shaquille O’Neal served lawsuit after lawyers claimed NBA veteran spent previous three months ‘hiding’ from them: ‘O’Neal will now be required to appear in federal court’
Shaquille O’Neal is well-known for his humorous on-screen antics with Charles Barkley and his fellow TNT analysts. However, the Diesel has recently been dealing with a far more serious concern, which is tied to a legal issue.
He is apparently one of many famous people who have been involved in a class-action complaint for allegedly promoting a “fraudulent scheme.” Attorneys previously stated that they tried to contact O’Neal in order to serve him documents, but that he had been “hiding” from them for months. After three months of trying, the attorneys were finally able to catch up with the NBA veteran.
This legal problem is linked to the disaster-related to FTX, a now-defunct cryptocurrency company, and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who allegedly recruited a number of A-list celebrities to promote Yuga Labs’ Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs.
The complaint claims that the stars were handed undisclosed payoffs while doing so. Yuga’s business attempt was defined in legal documents filed as “using insidious marketing and promotional activities from A-list celebrities who are highly compensated.”
According to reports, the company tried to convince “potential retail investors that the price of these digital assets would appreciate.” Kevin Hart, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Stephen Curry were all listed in the lawsuit, which was first reported in December 2022.
Edwin Garrison, an FTX client from Oklahoma, filed a class-action complaint in which Shaq is clearly involved. The Moskowitz Law Firm’s Adam Moskowitz and David Boies are handling the lawsuit. They both allege that when confronted, the celebrity famed for playing alongside Kobe Bryant on the Los Angeles Lakers has either hidden or “driven away” from servers. According to reports, a court even dismissed their attempts to serve him online.
However, The Block reports that he received the documents “outside his house” on Sunday.
Moskowitz also discussed the development in an email shared with CoinDesk:
Mr. O’Neal will now be required to appear in federal court and explain to his millions of followers his ‘FTX: I Am All In’ false advertising campaign, created by FTX Advertising Agency ‘Dentsu McGarrybowen’ and FTX Global Partnership Agency ‘Wasserman.’
