Shaquille O’Neal, former basketball star and celebrity endorser, has been served papers in a lawsuit over his involvement in promoting FTX. The lawsuit, which was filed in a Florida federal district court in November 2022, accuses O’Neal and other high-profile endorsers, including Tom Brady and Larry David, of actively participating in FTX’s offer and sale of unregistered securities.
Lawyers at the Moskowitz Law Firm, which is representing investor Edwin Garrison in the class action, have been trying to serve O’Neal with papers in person for the past few months. Despite making multiple attempts, they were unable to locate O’Neal. According to lawyer Adam Moskowitz, O’Neal had been hiding from the lawsuit.
The law firm posted tweets on its account directly addressing O’Neal, claiming that they had been standing outside the TNT studios in Atlanta for a week in the hopes of hand-delivering the complaint but were prevented by security. They further alleged that O’Neal had been running from them for months, while all other FTX celebrities had agreed to receive their complaints.
An update posted on Sunday night revealed that O’Neal had finally been served outside his house, and a record of the incident was made on his own home security cameras. With papers now served, the lawsuit will be able to proceed.
It is not clear why O’Neal was difficult to locate or whether he plans to contest the lawsuit. Decrypt has contacted O’Neal’s publicist for comment, but there has been no response yet. It remains to be seen how the lawsuit will develop and what impact it will have on the celebrity endorsers and FTX.
