Shaquille O’Neal is a big seven-foot man, but he is nimble enough to get away from lawyers trying to serve him papers.
Every day, the NBA Hall of Famer appears in a seemingly endless number of ads and endorsements, and he is a regular on TNT’s NBA coverage during the season. It’s difficult to miss him.
However, O’Neal has apparently been dodging lawyers representing FTX investors for months.
“In 30 years, I’ve never had to deal with this situation,” said Adam Moskowitz, a lawyer representing FTX investors, via the Wall Street Journal. “We are not going away.”
There were reports that he got served earlier this year, but he is trying to get his FTX lawsuit dismissed, saying the way he was served with papers was “inadequate.”
The basketball star was served last month after a three-month chase, according to tweets from the law firm involved in the case.
“Plaintiffs in the billion $ FTX class action case just served @SHAQ outside his house,” The Moskowitz Law Firm tweeted on April 17. “His home video cameras recorded our service and we made it very clear that he is not to destroy or erase any of these security tapes, because they must be preserved for our lawsuit.”
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Lawyers for O’Neal are seeking to dismiss the claims against him. In a court filing, they said the legal documents were “tossed” in front of O’Neal’s car as he drove out of his Georgia house and left “on the road where they landed.”
Attorneys wrote in the court filing: “Mr. O’Neal has not evaded service by failing to be at the residences where plaintiffs belatedly attempted service or by driving past strangers who approached his car.”
Because of how those papers were thrown at him, he is still avoiding these lawyers at all costs.
Lawyers have previously tried to serve Shaq with an electronic link sent to his social media, Bloomberg reported. The judge presiding in the case, however, did not allow the method, it added.
O’Neal is one of numerous celebrities and athletes mentioned in a proposed class-action lawsuit launched by FTX investors following the bankruptcy of the cryptocurrency firm. O’Neal starred in advertisements for the brand alongside Tom Brady and his ex-wife Gisele Bündchen, comedian Larry David, tennis sensation Naomi Osaka, and Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry, among others.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the creator of FTX, was arrested in January and charged with wire fraud, securities fraud, money laundering, and other offenses.
