NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal was served in a class action lawsuit following his involvement in the bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency company.
FTX Trading, most commonly known as FTX, is a bankrupt cryptocurrency company that is being sued by investors for exchanging billions of investment money for personal use and gambling in a yearlong fraud.
Federal prosecutors have called the situation “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history” and the company’s founder was even arrested with a maximum sentence of 115 years in prison if convicted of all charges.
With this being said, O’Neal, alongside fellow celebrity athletes such as Tom Brady and Naomi Osaka openly endorsed the company and vouched for its credibility. Now, investors are claiming they were manipulated by celebrities for endorsing the now scandalous exchange.
However, Adam Moskowitz’s law firm has reportedly been trying to serve the former basketball star for months with little to no luck. The attorney claimed Shaq “has been hiding and driving away from our process servers for the past three months.”
But, the office told PEOPLE Magazine that the basketball legend has since been served by lawyers representing the plaintiffs.
“We were mainly just disappointed by Mr. O’Neal’s actions because he has done so many wonderful volunteer efforts, for the police in Florida, as well as here in Miami,” Moskowitz said. “It was such a disappointment to waste so much time and resources on this sideshow and hope Mr. O’Neal hires counsel and just follows the law.”
Shaquille O’Neal says he was ‘just a paid spokesperson’ for FTX and has no other relation to the company.
Although the law firm has reportedly tried to serve Shaq for months, the NBA star has outwardly been trying to distance himself from the scandal since December. At the end of this year, O’Neal admitted in an interview, “I was just a paid spokesperson for a commercial.”
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“People know I’m very, very honest,” he continued. “I have nothing to hide. If I was heavily involved, I would be at the forefront saying, ‘Hey.’ But I was just a paid spokesperson.”
O’Neal also shared he is still hesitant about cryptocurrency as a whole, regardless of his paid commercial. “I don’t understand it, so I will probably stay away from it until I get a full understanding of what it is,” he explained. “From my experience, it is too good to be true.”
