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Topics: US News, Money, Cryptocurrency
Claire Reid
Basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal has been served in a class-action lawsuit which involves several high-profile celebrities who endorsed the now defunct FTX cryptocurrency platform.
The suit was filed by lawyer Adam Moskowitz back in November on behalf of numerous investors who used the platform.
It accuses FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, alongside several public figures including O’Neal, Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, and Steph Curry, of defrauding investors.
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Moskowitz has claimed FTX was a ‘massive Ponzi scheme’, that had been run by ‘geniuses at public relations and marketing’ who had used popular names from sport and entertainment to help promote it.
In a post on Twitter Moskowitz Law Firm said that O’Neal had now been served the legal papers.
“Plaintiffs in the billion $ FTX class action case just served @SHAQ outside his house,” the tweet read.
“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.”
In a post from earlier this month, the firm accused Shaq of ‘running’ away from their attempts to hand over the legal papers.
In a tweet directly to O’Neal, the firm wrote: “@SHAQ We represent thousands of FTX victims who lost their savings in the massive FTX fraud. We have been standing outside your TNT studios in Atlanta all week, but your security guards will not let us in, to just hand deliver our legal complaint.
“You have been running from us for months & all other FTX celebrities have agreed to receive their complaints. Please have the courtesy & honor to simply allow our process servers tomorrow to deliver our legal complaint on your behalf, so you can defend your actions in this matter.”
Back in December, O’Neal told CNBC that he had merely been paid to star in a commercial for FTX and that he wasn’t ‘heavily involved’ with the platform.
He told the news outlet: “A lot of people think I’m involved, but I was just a paid spokesperson for a commercial.”
O’Neal added: “People know I’m very, very honest. 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.”
Speaking in 2021, O’Neal had suggested he wouldn’t be trying out crypto trading anytime soon as he didn’t fully understand it.
“I don't understand it,” he told CNBC’s Make It. “So I will probably stay away from it until I get a full understanding of what it is...From my experience, it is too good to be true.”