Shaquille O’Neal has lastly been served papers in a lawsuit over his position in selling FTX after legal professionals accused the previous basketball star of hiding from them.
Alongside fellow high-profile endorsers akin to Tom Brady and Larry David, O’Neal was named as a defendant within the go well with filed final November in a Florida federal district courtroom.
It alleges that the celebrities “actively participated” in FTX’s provide and sale of unregistered securities.
Earlier this month, legal professionals on the Moskowitz Legislation Agency–which is representing investor Edwin Garrison within the class motion–mentioned they’d made a number of makes an attempt to serve O’Neal with papers in particular person over the previous few months, however had been unsuccessful.
“Mainly, the biggest man is hiding from our lawsuit,” lawyer Adam Moskowitz instructed Decrypt.
Final week, tweets posted to the regulation agency’s account immediately addressed O’Neal, claiming they’d been standing outdoors the TNT studios in Atlanta all week within the hopes of hand-delivering the grievance, however had been prevented by safety.
“You could have been operating from us for months & all different FTX celebrities have agreed to obtain their complaints,” the regulation agency wrote.
An replace posted late on Sunday evening mentioned that O’Neal had lastly been served outdoors his home, with a report of the incident made on his own residence safety cameras.
With papers now served, the lawsuit will be capable of proceed. Decrypt has contacted O’Neal’s publicist for remark.
‘Shaqtoshi’ and FTX’s movie star companions
Dubbed “Shaqtoshi” by FTX, O’Neal mentioned in an commercial that he was “all in” on the alternate. However he later instructed CNBC he doesn’t perceive crypto and can most likely keep away from it following the alternate’s collapse.
In a video posted on FTX’s account in June 2022, O’Neal mentioned he was “excited to be partnering with FTX to assist make crypto accessible for everybody. I’m all in. Are you?”
O’Neal was simply certainly one of a string of stars paid to endorse the model, from fellow sports activities personalities like Steph Curry and Naomi Osaka to entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary.
A number of of these named within the lawsuit final week filed a movement to dismiss, arguing that it was FTX, and never its movie star endorsers, that enticed customers to open “Yield Bearing Accounts” (YBAs), the kind of account on the heart of the grievance.
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