Steve Ballmer’s Kawhi Leonard problem refuses to go away, and continues to get worse. Now the Clippers’ owner is being sued over the scandal.
On Monday night, Pablo Torre reported that 11 investors in the bankrupt former Clippers sponsor Aspiration, now named Catona, have sued Ballmer for allegedly using the company to secretly funnel money to Leonard.
From the lawsuit:
The arrangement was that Ballmer would be an investor in Catona and in return, Ballmer would use Catona to secretly funnel millions of dollars to star NBA player Kawhi Leonard. These funds would be channeled through Catona to Leonard so that Ballmer could induce Leonard to re-sign with the Clippers by covertly paying him more than allowed by the NBA’s salary cap rules.
It further claims that Ballmer abetted Aspiration co-founder Joe Sanberg’s fraud for the self-serving purpose of getting more money to Leonard.
It also served Ballmer’s interest in getting extra money to Leonard so he could circumvent the salary cap, beat out the competition and re-sign his team’s superstar player. Ballmer was complicit in and aided and abetted Sanberg’s fraud for his own self-serving purpose. Ballmer publicly endorsed Catona and infused over $50 million into the company. Absent Ballmer’s support, Catona could not have sustained the frauds set forth herein.
Sanberg was charged with defrauding investors out of more than $248 million by the Department of Justice, and pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud. Each count carries up to 20 years in prison.
The plaintiffs argue that had they known the true nature of Ballmer’s investment, they would not have put money into the company.
They further claim:
Ballmer transferred other funds to Catona to keep the company afloat and buy Sanberg's support, cooperation and silence about the secret deal with Leonard. The full extent of Ballmer’s transfers of funds to Catona and Sanberg will be ascertained in discovery.
The full lawsuit is available here.
Torre has been on top of this story from the beginning and broke the initial report Leonard’s alleged no-show job on his podcast, Pablo Torre Finds Out.
The NBA has launched its own investigation into the alleged salary cap circumvention by Ballmer and the Clippers. While that’s a big deal, this lawsuit makes Ballmer’s troubles even deeper.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Steve Ballmer Facing New Lawsuit Related to Kawhi Leonard-Aspiration Scandal.