Shaquille O’Neal, a Hall of Famer and NBA legend, was said to be hiding out in his mansion in order to avoid being served with a class-action lawsuit filed against him and other FTX cryptocurrency brand ambassadors.
Many celebrities, including the famous basketball player, promoted cryptocurrency, encouraging investors to invest millions of dollars that they would later lose.
One of the investors, Edwin Garrison, filed a lawsuit against O’Neal and other celebrities, including Steph Curry, Gisele Bundchen, Larry David, Tom Brady, and Naomi Osaka.
Garrison claimed in the lawsuit that when FTX went bankrupt, he lost everything in his cryptocurrency account. He stated that he had only invested because of celebrity endorsements.
With the exception of O’Neal, Garrison’s legal team claims that all of the celebrities named in the lawsuit have been served. People have noticed that O’Neal has avoided attorneys and that the allegations made against him in the lawsuit are quite serious.
Garrison’s attorney, Adam Moskowitz, expressed “amazement” about O’Neal’s efforts to avoid being served with the complaint in an interview with Forbes media. According to Moskowitz, the basketball legend admitted that the evidence against him was the most compelling of any FTX brand ambassador.
On March 7, the attorneys sent an email to the defendants, singling out O’Neal for his evasion tactics and stating that he was the only one who chose to avoid being served, possibly to prolong the proceedings or to avoid responding to the accusations.
Last year, the NBA star was one of the media figures who advocated for FTX, and he even hosted a Super Bowl party with the cryptocurrency company in Los Angeles.
In June of last year, the celebrity appeared as an official FTX ambassador and promoted the brand online, particularly on Twitter. Many people were enticed by his commercial appearances to join what was billed as the world’s premier cryptocurrency exchange.
Following CEO Sam Bankman’s declaration of bankruptcy on November 11, FTX’s brief existence came to an end. He was in custody in December on fraud charges for allegedly cheating investors out of billions of dollars.
O’Neal has tried to distance himself from FTX by claiming he was only a hired spokesman. According to the attorneys, the 7-foot-1-inch man avoided the process servers who were knocking on his door.
The defendants have until April 14 to file a response to the lawsuit.
Shaq has now shown up! He tweeted on March 19 from his hospital bed after having hip replacement surgery.