Daily Business Review

NFTs Could Be the Next Wave of Crypto Securities Litigation

A Miami attorney said a class action against a National Basketball Association star and his non-fungible token project, Astrals, represents the next wave of cryptocurrency lawsuits seeking to coin an NFT as a security in the emerging area of digital assets law.

Decrypt

Shaq Played Active Role in Solana NFT Project Before Abandoning It, Lawsuit Alleges

An amended complaint was filed on Thursday in the federal class action lawsuit against Shaquille O’Neal over his NFT project Astrals, and the basketball icon faces allegations of violating securities laws in connection to offering Solana-based assets and an associated token.

The 111-page filing comes after a district judge in Florida appointed the case’s lead plaintiffs last month, who are represented by counsel at The Moskowitz Law Firm. Managing Partner Adam Moskowitz told Decrypt the filing represents a pivotal step forward.

LAW360

Shaq Tells Judge His NFTs Were For Gamers, Not Investors

Law 360 has an update on the Astrals case involving Shaquille O'Neal:

Adam Moskowitz, an attorney who is litigating a number of cases in Miami involving allegations related to celebrity promotion of cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency-adjacent things, told Law360 in an emailed statement that "we are reviewing the motion now, but are very encouraged because we have much respect for defendant's counsel, and are very honored to have Judge Moreno and [U.S.] Magistrate Judge [Jonathan] Goodman. Both are some of the most experienced jurists on class actions in the nation."

Counsel for O'Neal did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Daily Business Review

Mark Cuban, Miami Attorney Take Shots Over Voyager Token Insider-Trading Claims

Mark Cuban, a high-profile defendant in the Voyager Digital Ltd. federal class action litigation in Miami, refuted accusations that he committed insider trading by a lead plaintiffs' counsel attorney, ahead of a pivotal hearing.

That attorney, Adam Moskowitz of The Moskowitz Law Firm, is joined by lawyers who include David Boies and Stephen Zack of Boies Schiller Flexner, who alleged that without "complete discovery" by the Sept. 4 deadline, including when defendant Mark Cuban exited his Voyager Digital Ltd. investments, the class will not be prepared for the trial's tip-off in February 2024.

"I owned a total of 4,000 Voyager tokens and sold a total of about 400 tokens," said Mark Cuban, a defendant in the Voyager Digital Ltd. class action. "So the concept of insider trading, particularly when there's no conversation with the CEO around that time, is ridiculous."

The plaintiff class claimed they were being stonewalled on specific documents with substantial implications. A federal magistrate judge will rule on matters related to the production of documents and deposition of the NBA.

A February 2024 trial looms in the Voyager Digital Ltd. federal class action.

Bloomberg

FTX’s Celebrity, VC Backers to Face Consolidated Suits in Miami

Lawsuits against FTX’s financial backers and celebrity endorsers by customers of the failed cryptocurrency exchange were consolidated before a single federal judge in Florida.

A judicial panel on Monday ordered the creation of a multi-district litigation before US District Judge K. Michael Moore in Miami, noting that the company had its US headquarters there before filing for bankruptcy.

Customers have filed several class actions against venture capital and private equity firms including Sequoia Capital and Thoma Bravo that invested in FTX, claiming they enabled co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who is facing fraud stemming from the exchange’s collapse. Celebrities that endorsed FTX, including Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, Shaquille O’Neal and Larry David, have also been sued.

FTX itself has been protected from litigation since it November Chapter 11 filing in Delaware, but that stay doesn’t apply to third parties that allegedly facilitated the exchange’s actions.

MDLs are designed to reduce costs by eliminating duplicative pre-trial document exchanges and provide a venue for test trials to weigh the value of claims, although some companies criticize them as a way for judges to wrongfully strong-arm settlements of suits. Plaintiffs’ lawyers argued for an MDL last month at a hearing in Philadelphia, saying it was necessary to manage the “unwieldy” litigation.

Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to a 13-count indictment, part of which alleges he orchestrated a scheme to transfer billions of dollars in FTX customer funds to Alameda Research, an affiliated hedge fund, for risky trades and personal use.

The case is In RE: FTX Cyrptocurrency Exchange Collapse Litigation, MDL No. 3076, US Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (Philadelphia).

CFL Wire

Tom Brady and Others Face Consolidated Lawsuits in Florida Federal Court Over FTX Debacle

Following the high-profile collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, a total of eight lawsuits were launched against several big names like legendary football star Tom Brady, Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence, the basketball team Golden State Warriors, and NBA Hall of Fame member Shaquille O’Neal. On Monday, it was announced that these eight lawsuits have been combined and will be dealt with by the federal court in the Southern District of Florida.

he Legal Battle Surrounding FTX: Possible Outcomes and Repercussions

Suffering a disastrous downfall last year, FTX’s founder Samuel Bankman-Fried is now facing both civil and criminal liability. Those connected to the company, like Tom Brady, will probably experience some intense scrutiny as investigators seek to determine what they knew about the fate of this venture. The goal is to simplify court proceedings by having all related FTX cases consolidated into one lawsuit. This measure is expected to help legal professionals explore the hazy details surrounding FTX’s bankruptcy. One attorney involved in fighting previous actions against FTX in Miami alongside his co-counsel had this to say: “We are grateful to [the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation] for granting our Motion and consolidating all FTX cases … here [ongoing quote]“. (Courtesy: Adam Moskowitz).

The Fallout from the FTX Scandal: How it Could Affect Tom Brady’s Future Plans

Interestingly, Tom Brady, who recently announced his retirement from football, has been trying to obtain minority ownership of the Raiders – a move that requires league approval. Given the ongoing legal dispute around FTX though, NFL officials may delay their decision about whether Brady is suitable for such a role until its repercussions are fully understood.

Tom Brady’s Life After Football Retirement

Despite his entanglement in the FTX lawsuit, Tom Brady isn’t exactly twiddling his thumbs in retirement. He’s staying busy with numerous business ventures like TB12 Method (his health and wellness company), clothing line BradyBrand as well as establishing an NFT company called Autograph. Of course, he also plans to spend more quality time with family – something he couldn’t do much during his 20+ year career in the NFL.

A New Frontier: Broadcasting Career on the Horizon

His new position as a sportscaster won’t begin until 2024 which gives him plenty of time to adjust to this change in industry. The transition can be very challenging; just ask Jason Witten. But other former players like Greg Olsen and Tony Romo have managed it successfully, and all eyes will be on Tom Brady to do the same.

To Sum Up: An Unfolding Legal Drama…

The FTX case so far has:

• Merged eight separate lawsuits into one proceeding

• Touched high-profile personalities including Tom Brady, Trevor Lawrence, Golden State Warriors and Shaquille O’Neal

• Caused uncertainty regarding NFL’s approval of Brady’s stake in the Raiders

• Put a spotlight on the defendants’ awareness of FTX’s viability prior to its collapse. Though it is still uncertain how this legal drama will play out, one thing is clear: it has far-reaching implications for all those involved. In particular, Tom Brady must contend with challenges from this lawsuit while continuing his various business ventures and preparing for a possible career in broadcasting.

Law360

FTX Investor Suits Centralized In Fla. Over Celeb Objections

Eight investor suits tied to the November 2022 collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX will go through pretrial proceedings in Miami, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation decided on Monday despite opposition to the move by celebrities including retired NFL quarterback Tom Brady and his ex-wife, model Gisele Bündchen. 

In a Monday ruling, the panel's seven judges said that centralization of the eight cases "all rest on the same core set of facts concerning the alleged fraud that led to FTX's collapse and, in particular, revolve around the conduct" of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX's entanglement with Alameda Research, a related company, and former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison.

"This common factual core warrants centralization despite the involvement of a number of different defendants," the panel said Monday, noting that it found arguments against centralization "unpersuasive" despite the fact that the cases involve some non-overlapping defendants.

Daily Business Review

Miami to Host FTX Multidistrict Litigation, Signature Bank and Silvergate Bank Excluded

On Monday, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ordered that dozens of FTX cases be transferred to U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore, who sits in the Southern District of Florida.

And attorneys, such as Adam Moskowitz, the managing partner at The Moskowitz Law Firm, who argued in favor of sending the cases to Florida, and Stuart Davidson, of Robbins, Geller, Rudman & Dowd in Boca Raton, Florida, who has a case in California, expressed admiration for Moore, who “will certainly continue to efficiently and effectively coordinate all of these important actions here in Miami.”

NBC Sports

FTX lawsuits against Tom Brady and others are consolidated in Florida

In the aftermath of the collapse of FTX, eight lawsuits were filed against various defendants, including Tom Brady. On Monday, those eight cases were consolidated and coordinated in federal court in the Southern District of Florida.

Defendants in the FTX cases include Tom Brady and Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence. The Golden State Warriors have been sued, along with NBA Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal.

“We are grateful to the [United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation] for granting our Motion and consolidating all FTX cases before Judge K. Michael Moore, who will certainly continue to efficiently and effectively coordinate all of these important actions here in Miami,” attorney Adam Moskowitz said in a statement. Moskowitz has been litigating various actions against FTX in Miami, along with with co-counsel David Boies.

The company imploded last year, with civil and criminal liability for founder Samuel Bankman-Fried. For the defendants like Brady, the discovery process surely will focus on what they knew and when they knew it about the viability of the company.

Brady recently agreed to purchase a minority interest in the Raiders, subject to league approval. It arguably would be foolish for the NFL to vote on Brady’s suitability to join Club Oligarch without fully understanding the potential consequences of the FTX litigation.

Law360

YouTuber Settles With FTX Investors, More Deals Expected

A Florida federal judge on Thursday paused FTX investors' proposed class action against YouTube "landlord influencer" Kevin Paffrath after they told the court they had tentatively agreed to the terms of a settlement ending claims Paffrath misled investors into buying unregistered securities on the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency platform.

The investors' attorney Adam Moskowitz of The Moskowitz Law Firm PLLC told Law360 that "much credit goes to Mr. Paffrath, who immediately decided to amicably resolve and help his followers instead of litigating his available defenses."

Moskowitz added that the investors have reached similar settlements with other FTX influencers and have begun mediations with some of the FTX celebrity brand ambassadors targeted in a separate lawsuit.

CoinDesk

Lawyer Behind FTX Lawsuit Weighs in on Celebrity Endorsements

Bloomberg Law

FTX’s Bankers, Endorsers Should Face Class Suits, Lawyers Argue

Financiers and celebrity endorsers of the failed FTX cryptocurrency exchange should face consolidated class-action lawsuits over the billions lost in the meltdown of Sam Bankman-Fried’s digital-asset empire, investors’ lawyers argued Thursday.

Venture capital and private equity firms including Sequoia Capital Operations LLC and Thoma Bravo LLC – along with sports icons such as ex-NFL quarterback Tom Brady, former Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz and ex-NBA center Shaquille O’Neal – should face a single judge overseeing allegations they enabled Bankman-Fried’s alleged fraud, attorneys for crypto investors told a panel of federal judges.

While FTX sought Chapter 11 protection in Delaware in November, federal laws freezing litigation against companies in bankruptcy court don’t apply to third parties, allowing investors to take aim at people and companies that allegedly facilitated the exchange’s actions.

Gathering the suits will help take what many have described as “unwieldy cases” targeting those who aided and abetted FTX’s misdeeds and make them manageable, veteran lawyer David Boies, told the panel on Multi-District Litigation (MDL) in a hearing in Philadelphia.

Such MDLs are designed to reduce costs by eliminating duplicative pre-trial document exchanges and provide a venue for test trials to weigh the value of claims. Some companies, however, criticize MDLs as a way for judges to wrongfully strong-arm settlements of suits.

Bankman-Fried is facing criminal fraud charges after federal prosecutors alleged he masterminded of one of the biggest scams in US history, fraudulently raising at least $1.8 billion despite having assured investors FTX had appropriate controls and risk management. He’s also accused of misusing customer funds at FTX to cover personal expenses and real estate purchases.

Boies and his allies urged the panel to send the nearly dozen cases to federal court in Miami, where FTX operated in the US and US District Judge Cecilia Altonaga is already handling some cases. Other lawyers suggested the cases would be better handled in federal court in San Francisco, where US District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley is overseeing some FTX claims.

While some FTX insiders are named as defendants, none were executives or directors at the time of the bankruptcy filing, said Adam Moskowitz, a Miami-based lawyer representing FTX investors. “We were very careful in who we sued,” he said outside the hearing.

Such targeted class-actions have reaped billions in settlements from banks and other players in past big-name businesses collapses, including Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc.

The case is In RE: FTX Cryptocurrency Exchange Collapse Litigation, MDL No. 3076, US Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (Philadelphia).

CBS News

Shaquille O'Neal served FTX complaint during broadcast of NBA playoff game

After months of evasion, basketball star Shaquille O'Neal has been served in a case involving collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. The legal documents, served Tuesday, were delivered to the former athlete and current "Inside the NBA" analyst during the broadcast of a Miami Heat-Boston Celtics playoff game in Miami, plaintiffs' attorney Adam Moskowitz said.

The complaint is part of a class-action lawsuit alleging O'Neal and other celebrities defrauded FTX investors by appearing in advertisements for the crypto-trading platform. O'Neal "hid" from process servers for months before being tracked down at the Kaseya Center, formerly called the FTX Arena, Moskowitz told CBS MoneyWatch.

A process server filmed the event to make sure there wouldn't be "any problem" moving the case forward, Moskowitz said. Shaq ordered the process server to be ejected from the arena after the service, he added.

"They gave video of most of the service (not all), so we would be shocked if they raise any problems," Moskowitz said. "We also now served a copy on his lawyer Bobby Martinez, so there can be no doubt he is served!"

Process servers thought they had successfully served the Hall of Famer in April. However, O'Neal earlier this month filed a request to dismiss the lawsuit, alleging that he had never actually received the legal papers.

"This purported 'service' is inadequate," O'Neal's attorneys said in a court filing. "It should be quashed, and the claims against Mr. O'Neal dismissed."

According to federal law, a complaint must be served in person or through mail. If the individual being served does not receive the papers, the case can be delayed or dismissed.

In March, Forbes reported that Moskowitz's firm had enlisted four different companies to hand O'Neal the complaint after months of failed attempts to serve the former athlete.

During the Tuesday night game, O'Neal was also served a second complaint alleging he and his son promoted an NFT project called ASTRALS before abandoning it, according to Moskowitz.

O'Neal's lawyer, Roberto Martinez, did not immediately reply to CBS MoneyWatch's request for comment.

"The irony here is that Shaq claimed no experience in crypto but this new class case for the NFT Astrals proves the opposition — he, his son and his business partner, all planned to make many millions odd dollars based solely on his involvement," Moskowitz said.

NBC News

Shaquille O’Neal served with FTX-related lawsuit at Miami Heat playoff game after dodging servers for months

After somehow successfully avoiding it for months, Shaquille O’Neal was finally served papers on Tuesday in a legal battle over his involvement with a failed cryptocurrency exchange.

The hard-to-miss, 7-foot-1 superstar had been dodging plaintiffs targeting him and other celebrities like Tom Brady and Larry David who had endorsed FTX, the now bankrupt crypto business.

A plucky process server finally got Shaq, an analyst for TNT, at Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Tuesday night in Miami where the hometown Heat battled the Boston Celtics.

The Heat play their homes games in Kaseya Center, a building that —until the collapse of the Sam Bankman-Fried venture last year — had been named FTX Center.

“He was personally provided the papers, so he cannot raise his absurd delay tactics,” the plaintiff's attorney, Adam Moskowitz, told the NBC sports platform Pro Football Talk.

“We watched the prior Heat/Celtics game, so knew he would be in the outside broadcasting booth where fans were right next door.”

O'Neal is the target of another lawsuit over his involvement with the NFT/crypto offering, the Astrals Project, according to the lawyer.

“The allegations in the new crypto complaint are very serious and detail how him, his son and his business partner all founded this NFT Metaverse and he made promises every week that he would be extremely involved, so the value of the NFTs would grow greatly,” Moskowitz said. “Once the FTX fraud was revealed, he ran away and has not been heard since.”

A representative for O'Neal could not be immediately reached for comment on Thursday.

The Hall of Fame hoopster has previously said that he, as "just a paid spokesperson," shouldn't be held accountable for failed ventures.

The Washington Post

Shaq served in FTX suit at NBA playoff game — in former FTX Arena

Shaquille O’Neal is over 7 feet tall and appears on TV frequently. But the former NBA star was hard to locate — at least for the more than two dozen process servers who had been hired to notify O’Neal that he’s being sued.

For nearly four months, they followed O’Neal from Georgia to Texas to Florida to hand him a complaint naming him as a defendant in a lawsuit against FTX — once one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges and now a collapsed company involved in an alleged fraud case. Despite several close encounters, though, O’Neal remained out of reach.

That is until Tuesday night, when the Miami Heat played the Boston Celtics, a game O’Neal was covering as an analyst for TNT. The playoff game was held at the Kaseya Center — a downtown Miami stadium once named FTX Arena.

“It was a bit of poetic justice,” said Adam Moskowitz, a Florida-based attorney representing the group of investors suing celebrities who had endorsed FTX. “But at the same time, this whole saga is unnecessary and farcical — it’s not helping the case. It’s not advancing the case. It’s just delaying the case.”

The case against O’Neal and 10 other celebrities — including former NFL quarterback Tom Brady, comedian Larry David and supermodel Gisele Bündchen — has been mounting since November. That month, FTX filed for bankruptcy in a move that vaporized at least $10 billion in assets and raised questions about regulation and oversight in an industry that operates outside conventional banking rules. FTX’s founder Sam Bankman-Fried is facing multiple charges, including fraud, money laundering and campaign finance violations. (Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to the charges.)

But the class-action lawsuit Moskowitz is involved in is focused on the 11 celebrity figures who promoted FTX, appearing in flashy commercials and ads — some of which aired during the Super Bowl. Those marketing campaigns and endorsement, the suit alleges, lured “unsophisticated investors” and cost them their fortunes. And promoting those risky unregistered securities without any prior research is in violation of Florida laws protecting investors from fraud and deception, the lawsuit claims.

O’Neal’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post. In an interview last year, the former NBA star said his involvement with FTX was limited to being “a paid spokesperson for a commercial.”

But since the FTX meltdown, Moskowitz said O’Neal went to great lengths to evade the process servers, which wound up costing the attorneys over $100,000 and led to safety concerns for the process servers, he said.

“I haven’t heard of anything like this in 30 years,” Moskowitz said. “This is a defendant who’s well-known. He’s not fleeing another island. He’s in America, and he’s on TV every day — but we can’t get near him and serve him. It’s insane.”

After process servers were unsuccessful reaching O’Neal at his homes in Texas, Georgia and Florida and the TNT studio in Atlanta, attorneys filed a motion to serve the former basketball player via social media. A judge said no.

Two process servers later tried to throw the papers at O’Neal’s moving vehicle — a move his lawyers disputed in court, claiming it ran afoul of the requirements for serving legal documents. Moskowitz said the processors met the requirements by making eye contact with O’Neal and showing him the papers.

But before a judge could rule on that motion, Moskowitz said his team had another idea. The attorney had prepared a second complaint after clients alleged they’d been scammed by another one of O’Neal’s ventures, which sold non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. When they saw O’Neal was covering the game between the Heat and Celtics, a process server sprang into action.

“We got a two-for-one deal and served him the two complaints,” Moskowitz said.

Steve Polak, co-founder of the California-based private investigation firm Sunset Blvd. Investigations, said O’Neal isn’t the only celebrity who has been difficult for process servers to reach when delivering lawsuits and court summons.

“You’ve got to remember they have security teams and adoring fans,” Polak said. “Sometimes we just have a split second to serve them, and you have to be precise.”

It’s a process that’s “equal parts James Bond and equal parts internet sleuth” Polak added — and one that “no one really wants to be a part of.”

“As much as no one likes getting served, no one likes serving,” he said. “But here’s the thing: don’t take it out on the process server, because we’re just doing our job.”

FOX Sports

Shaq Served FTX Lawsuit at the Former FTX Arena

Basketball Hall of Famer Shaquille O'Neal was served a summons and complain in the class action filed against him and others in relation to the collapse of FTX at the formerly named FTX Arena on Tuesday (May 23) night, attorney Adam Moskowitz told ProFootballTalk.

O'Neal was at the now-Kaseya Center for TNT's coverage of Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat.

“He was personally provided the papers, so he cannot raise his absurd delay tactics,” Moskowitz said. “We watched the prior Heat/Celtics game, so knew he would be in the outside broadcasting booth where fans were right next door.”

The Moskowitz Law Firm previously tweeted that O'Neal was served the class action suit outside his house on April 16, as well as a new lawsuit over the Astrals Project, an NFT/crypto offering.

“The allegations in the new crypto complaint are very serious and detail how him, his son and his business partner all founded this NFT Metaverse and he made promises every week that he would be extremely involved, so the value of the NFTs would grow greatly,” Moskowitz said via ProFootballTalk. “Once the FTX fraud was revealed, he ran away and has not been heard since.”

O'Neal was among several celebrities sued for endorsing FTX, along with the cryptocurrency company and its former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.

Other notable names included in the lawsuit are listed below:

• Tom Brady, seven-time Super Bowl champion

• Stephen Curry, four-time NBA champion

• Gisele Bündchen, supermodel and Brady's ex-wife

• Kevin O'Leary, businessman and Shark Tank personality

• Udonis Haslem, NBA player

• David Ortiz, Baseball Hall of Famer and FOX Sports analyst

• Golden State Warriors LLC

• Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback

• Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Angels pitcher, outfielder and designated hitter, reigning American League MVP

• Naomi Osaka, four-time tennis Grand Slam champion

• Larry David, co-creator and head writer of Seinfeld and creator and star of Curb Your Enthusiasm

The lawsuit alleges that the defendants listed are "responsible for the many billions of dollars in damages they caused."

FTX announced it had begun the process of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy following Bankman-Fried's decision to step down as CEO last year.

"The immediate relief of Chapter 11 is appropriate to provide the FTX Group the opportunity to assess its situation and develop a process to maximize recoveries for stakeholders," said John J. Ray III, who took over as CEO, according to the company's news release shared on November 11. "The FTX Group has valuable assets that can only be effectively administered in an organized joint process. I want to ensure every employee, customer, creditor, contract party, stockholder, investor, governmental authority and other stakeholder that we are going to conduct this effort with diligence, thoroughness and transparency. Stakeholders should understand that events have been fast-moving and the new team is engaged only recently. Stakeholders should review the materials filed on the docket of the proceedings over the coming days for more information."

The filing marked a staggering shift for the company, which was previously reported to be valued at $32 billion and deemed as the face of the crypto industry due to its marketing and advertising campaign, as well as long-term partnerships with the aforementioned names included in the lawsuit.

FTX was in discussions with investors for up to $1 billion in funding at a valuation of an estimated $32 billion in September, but has since significantly dropped and is reported to have been taken over by Binance "for pennies on the dollar," CoinDesk.com reported earlier this week.

Several media outlets had reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department have already launched investigations into FTX at the time of the bankruptcy report.

Front Office Sports

Shaq Served FTX Suit at NBA Playoff Game, Also Sued For Astrals NFT Startup

Lawyers representing a class action lawsuit against FTX once again served Shaquille O’Neal last night, tracking the TNT broadcaster down before Tuesday’s Game 4 of the NBA’s Eastern Conference Finals between the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics.

Ironically, lawyers say they served legal papers to Shaq at the Heat’s Kaseya Arena, which was previously named FTX Arena before the cryptocurrency exchange collapsed last year.

Miami-based The Moskowitz Law Firm says Shaq has been evading servers for months as part of a Florida lawsuit seeking $1 billion in damages, with fellow FTX endorsers Tom Brady and Steph Curry also named in the suit.

“We watched the prior Heat/Celtics game, so knew [Shaq] would be in the outside broadcasting booth where fans were right next door,” lawyer Adam Moskowitz told Front Office Sports. “He was personally provided the papers, so he cannot raise his absurd delay tactics.”

In April, Moskowitz said his law firm served Shaq outside his home residence regarding the FTX case, alleging his home’s video surveillance cameras filmed the encounter. However, O’Neal’s lawyers claimed the legal papers were thrown at his car and landed on a public road, Bloomberg reported.

Moskowitz also represents investors in a new separate lawsuit against O’Neal for his NFT platform called Astrals Project, which he founded in 2022. The Florida suit is seeking more than $15 million in damages for investors who claim O’Neal violated securities laws by selling unregistered Astrals tokens.

“The allegations in the new crypto complaint are very serious and detail how him, his son, and his business partner all founded this NFT Metaverse and he [Shaq] made promises every week that he would be extremely involved, so the value of the NFTs would grow greatly,” Moskowitz told FOS. “Once the FTX fraud was revealed, he ran away and has not been heard since.”

According to the lawsuit filing, O’Neal launched Astrals last year with his partner Brian Bayati as CEO and his son Myles O’Neal as the company’s head of investor relations. Astrals promoted “Shaq Signature Passes” as a 50-edition “first consumable NFT of its kind, and the signing technology is one that we think will have wide-ranging applications,” referring to O’Neal’s digital signature for token holders.

The Astrals lawsuit has been assigned to Federal Judge Moreno and Magistrate Goodman in Miami federal court. O’Neal has 20 days to respond to the suit, Moskowitz told FOS.

Law360

FTX Server Dunks Suits On Shaq At Miami Heat Game

Former NBA star Shaquille O'Neal's attempts to dodge complaints by FTX and other crypto investors apparently came to an end Tuesday when, according to the investors' attorney, a process server handed the Hall of Famer a pair of lawsuits during a playoff game at the Miami arena once named after the failed cryptocurrency exchange.

A Wednesday announcement from Adam Moskowitz of The Moskowitz Law Firm, the attorney for the lead plaintiff, said a process server personally served O'Neal with the complaint from FTX investors while he was broadcasting the latest game in the series between his two former teams, the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat, at a venue that once had its own relationship to FTX.

Moskowitz added that he hopes this attempt to serve O'Neal will put an end to a "sideshow" in which the NBA star allegedly hid from servers and argued that prior service was inadequate.

The Wall Street Journal

Shaq Served Again In FTX Lawsuit…at Former FTX Arena

Lawyers for FTX investors said they finally served Shaquille O’Neal —again.

Process servers pursued the NBA legend for months as part of a lawsuit targeting the failed cryptocurrency exchange and celebrities who appeared in its ads. The other celebrity defendants didn’t contest their service of process, but O’Neal did.

Process servers had tried to reach him at his homes and studio, and at one point tossed legal papers at his SUV. On Tuesday night, they got him in Miami at the Kaseya Center during Game 4 of the NBA’s Eastern Conference Finals, according to Adam Moskowitz, a lawyer representing the FTX investors.

He was served the FTX complaint and a separate crypto-related lawsuit, Moskowitz said. O’Neal was at the venue, formerly known as FTX Arena, commentating for TNT.

“It seems absurd to have to go to such great lengths to serve Mr. O’Neal,” Moskowitz said.

Lawyers for O’Neal didn’t immediately comment.

Moskowitz is also handling a separate proposed class-action lawsuit related to O’Neal’s Astrals Project, which sold nonfungible tokens of 3-D avatars. That lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Florida, alleges O’Neal violated securities laws by selling unregistered securities.

Moskowitz said he told the process server who was delivering O’Neal those papers to also serve him again for the FTX lawsuit to make sure the matter can’t continue to tie up that case. The plaintiffs in the FTX case said they had previously served O’Neal outside his home in Georgia in April, but O’Neal had disputed that in court.

Moskowitz said the process server bought a ticket to the Tuesday game between the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics. O’Neal was commentating on the game from a platform in the arena.

The process server approached O’Neal while he was on the platform and served him, Moskowitz said. O’Neal later had the process server thrown out of the arena, Moskowitz said.

A representative for Kaseya Center didn’t respond to a request for comment.

O’Neal was one of several celebrities who appeared in FTX ads who were sued after the crypto exchange collapse. Moskowitz said O’Neal went out of his way to duck being served, which O’Neal has denied in court papers.

In an interview with CNBC in December, O’Neal distanced himself from FTX. “A lot of people think I’m involved, but I was just a paid spokesperson for a commercial,” he said.

Process servers hired by the plaintiffs spent months trying to deliver the summons and the lawsuit to O’Neal at his homes in Georgia and Texas and at his work at TNT studios in Atlanta. Process servers found O’Neal leaving his home in Georgia in April and threw the court papers at his SUV as he sped off, according to court documents.

Lawyers for O’Neal filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit earlier this month, arguing that the process servers didn’t properly serve O’Neal when they threw the court papers at his vehicle. O’Neal has denied the allegations in the lawsuit and has sought to have it dismissed on other grounds as well.

The judge in the FTX case last week denied the motions to dismiss as moot after the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint.

“I hope we can just get to the merits of the case,” Moskowitz said.

People

Shaquille O'Neal Served Again with Additional Complaints in FTX Lawsuit at Miami Heat Game

Shaquille O'Neal was served with two complaints while broadcasting Tuesday night's game between the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics.

In a statement shared with PEOPLE, attorney Adam Moskowitz said that O'Neal, 51, was served with the complaints on Tuesday, ironically at the formerly known FTX Arena in Miami.

"The process server filmed the event to ensure there was no ambiguity like Shaq has been arguing in the FTX case," the statement said, adding that the NBA legend had the process server "kicked out" of the venue after he was served.

Moskowitz said the first complaint regarding O'Neal's commercials for FTX has been pending since November 2022 in Miami Federal Court.

The second complaint, according to the attorney, accuses the TNT analyst of "violating federal securities laws" after he and his son, Myles O’Neal, founded their company ASTRALS.

Per the statement from Moskowitz, who represents investors for FTX and the father-son NFT venture, ASTRALS was selling "unregistered securities" and O'Neal failed to follow through on his promise to "always be around," following the FTX lawsuit.

Moskowitz said the "great lengths" the process server has had to go through to serve O'Neal "seems absurd" and that the claims are now "very serious."

Moskowitz said in the statement, “These claims now are very serious and thus it is good that we can start with the merits, instead of the silly service sideshow Mr. O’Neal unfortunately created.”

Representatives for O'Neal did not respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

O'Neal had been dodging process servers for months in the FTX lawsuit, which names several other celebrities, including Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen, Steph Curry, Naomi Osaka and Larry David. The lawsuit was filed by investors who say the use of celebrity endorsements duped them into investing in the now-bankrupt FTX crypto exchange.

O'Neal, who has become one of the most prominent commercial spokespersons in the U.S. since retiring from the NBA in 2011, appeared in several commercials and advertisement campaigns for FTX. However, in recent months since the crypto exchange became embroiled in controversy and went bankrupt, O'Neal has tried to distance himself from the company.

"A lot of people think I'm involved, but I was just a paid spokesperson for a commercial," O'Neal told CNBC in December.

Moskowitz's office has called the now-defunct FTX company a "fraud" on social media and, according to CNN, "a massive Ponzi scheme" that used celebrities to recruit investors.

Forbes reported last month that Moskowitz's office said it has used four different servicing companies to try and deliver the notice to O'Neal in recent months.

Insider

Shaq appeared to make a joke about FTX on national TV, right before he was served — again

During TNT's broadcast of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals on Tuesday, Shaquille O'Neal hinted at his involvement in an FTX lawsuit while speaking to Stephen Curry — just hours before getting served.

"Thanks for getting me in trouble," O'Neal said to Curry, likely in reference to their joint involvement in the FTX case.

"Don't say nothing," he continued, as both NBA legends fell into laughter.

Later that night, O'Neal was reportedly served two legal complaints — one for his involvement in the ongoing FTX lawsuit and another regarding an NFT project — by a process server who attended the game, Adam Moskowitz, co-counsel on the FTX lawsuit, told Insider.

In November 2022, following the implosion of FTX, investors in the now infamous crypto exchange filed a lawsuit against the celebrities who publically endorsed the company. Tom Brady, Larry David, Steph Curry, and O'Neal, among others, were part of the group of figures listed in the class-action suit.

O'Neal was first served in mid-April, following a three-month chase, according to tweets from The Moskowitz Law Firm, which represents the FTX investors.

O'Neal's lawyers have tried to dismiss the legal claim, saying in a court filing earlier this month that the papers were "tossed," at him while he was driving out from his Georgia home and were left "on the road where they landed."

"After months of dodging service, Shaquille O'Neal was just personally served with 2 Complaints, while broadcasting the Heat/Celtics Game 7 in Miami, Florida," The Moskowitz Law Firm wrote in a statement this morning. "The process server filmed the event to ensure there was no ambiguity like Shaq has been arguing in the FTX case, but after service, Mr. O'Neil had the process server kicked out of the Arena."

In addition to the FTX lawsuit, a second suit alleges that O'Neal and his son violated federal security laws after founding an NFT project called ASTRALS, before essentially abandoning it, according to a statement from The Moskowitz Law Firm.

The NFTs sold through the project should have been registered prior to offering, according to allegations in a legal complaint filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Bloomberg reported.

"We saw on Sunday that Shaq was announcing the Heat/Celtics game from the podium in our Arena and we also saw him walking around the arena a few times to go visit Pat Riley across the court," Moskowitz said in the statement. "Therefore, we just planned to serve him at last night's game."

"Our process server walked up to the platform, and you can see on tv, many Heat fans were standing right next to the TV booth and he saw Shaq and gave him both sets of papers," he continued.

Representation for O'Neal did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

In perhaps the biggest twist of irony, this all went down in the former FTX Arena — the Miami Heat's home arena that named after the crypto exchange in June 2021, before becoming the Kaseya Center this past April.

MarketWatch

Shaq can’t shake the process servers this time: 2 complaints over FTX ads finally in basketball star’s hands, lawyers say

Shaquille O’Neal, the former American professional basketball player, has been served with two complaints, according to the law firm representing a class-action lawsuit against failed crypto exchange FTX and the celebrities who appeared in ads and promotional material for the exchange.

A process server reportedly reached O’Neal during the broadcast of the Miami Heat versus the Boston Celtics game in Miami, Florida, and the process server filmed the event to ensure there’s no ambiguity, according to The Moskowitz Law Firm. The firm also alleges that O’Neal had the process server kicked out of the Kaseya Arena (formerly known as the FTX Arena) where the game was being played.

In the past, O’Neal has distanced himself from FTX after its bankruptcy in November, claiming that he was “just a paid spokesperson” in an interview to CNBC in December.

“How can he continue to say he was just a paid spokesperson when the SEC has already issued 13 orders, clearly telling celebrities that if you promote “unregistered securities” (not slices of pizza) you may be liable for aiding and abetting the sale of an unregistered security, which is a crime and you are liable for all of the losses,” said Adam Moskowitz, one of the lawyers on the case, in an email to MarketWatch.

“The law on this point is crystal clear. In the new complaint, he even had his son and business partner, both making tons of money, for promoting these securities and now he has run for the hills, leaving hundreds of his fans with nothing.”

A representative for O’Neal did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This isn’t the first time that the lawyers representing the plaintiffs claim to have served O’Neal. In April, the lawyers said that a process server had reached O’Neal outside his home and served him, but O’Neal’s lawyers said that the papers had been thrown at his car and didn’t count as properly serving a lawsuit.

“It seems absurd to have to go to such great lengths to serve Mr. O’Neal, who is deputy of the law,” said Moskowitz, in a statement. “These claims now are very serious and thus it is good that we can start with the merits, instead of the silly service sideshow Mr. O’Neal unfortunately created.”

Lawyers have tried to serve him via Twitter DMs, but in April a judge overlooking the case denied the motion. Despite being 7’1 ” tall, Shaq has been difficult to pin down.

Blockworks

Shaq Finally Served During Heat-Celtics Series… at Old FTX Arena

Shaquille O’Neal has finally been served, according to lawyers representing a class-action lawsuit against FTX and celebrity spokespeople who appeared in promotional materials for the defunct exchange.

A process server was reportedly able to reach O’Neal during the broadcast of the Miami Heat vs. Boston Celtics game in Miami, Florida, on Wednesday, May 24.

Ironically, the game was being played at what is now Kaseya Arena, after being renamed from FTX Arena following the eponymous exchange’s collapse.

However, this isn’t the first time that the law firm claimed to have served O’Neal, who was named in the lawsuit in November 2022.

Last month, the lawyers said that a process server had reached O’Neal outside of his Texas house and served him. O’Neal’s lawyers, however, claimed that the papers had been thrown at a car and landed on a public road.

“It seems absurd to have to go to such great lengths to serve Mr. O’Neal, who is a deputy of the law,” Adam Moskowitz, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the FTX case, told Blockworks via email.

Earlier this spring, a judge also denied a motion from the plaintiffs’ lawyers requesting that O’Neal be served digitally — through social media and email.

The judge overseeing the case, Judge K. Michael Moore, told the lawyers at the time that attempts to serve O’Neal through social media were “factually unsupported and legally insufficient. Particularly in such a complex and costly litigation for all parties involved, the Court will not continue to tolerate such violations or frivolous arguments.”

The FTX class-action lawsuit alleges that O’Neal’s “FTX: I Am All In” influenced consumers to use FTX.

Bloomberg Law

Shaquille O’Neal Served FTX Suit at NBA Game, Plaintiff Firm Says

Shaquille O’Neal was served a lawsuit by FTX crypto-exchange users at the Miami Heat game Tuesday night after their multiple previous attempts failed, according to the plaintiffs’ law firm.

Investors who bought crypto assets through FTX are accusing the former Los Angeles Lakers star, along with other celebrities like Tom Brady and Stephen Curry, of defrauding them by promoting the now-bankrupt crypto company.

O’Neal was at the Heat vs. Celtics playoff game Tuesday while broadcasting for TNT, according to The Moskowitz Law Firm, which represents FTX users. “The process server filmed the event to ensure there was no ambiguity like Shaq has been arguing in the FTX case,” the law firm said in a statement Wednesday.

O’Neal had the process server kicked out of the arena after he was served, the firm said.

A law firm representing O’Neal didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

“It seems absurd to have to go to such great lengths to serve Mr. O’Neal, who is deputy of the law,” plaintiffs’ attorney Adam Moskowitz said in the statement. “These claims now are very serious and thus it is good that we can start with the merits, instead of the silly service sideshow Mr. O’Neal unfortunately created.”

O’Neal has tried to have the suit against him dismissed because he said plaintiffs missed a deadline to serve him legal documents.

A process server in April threw documents at O’Neal’s car while he was driving from his Georgia home. O’Neal’s lawyers said that attempt didn’t count as service.

Earlier this year, FTX customers sought to serve O’Neal through Instagram and Twitter after he didn’t acknowledge receipt of the complaint after multiple months of service attempts.

The judge denied their request.

The case is Garrison v. Bankman Fried, Bankr. S.D. Fla., No. 1:22-cv-23753-KMM, 5/23/23.

Decrypt

Shaq Hit With Lawsuits Over Solana NFT Project, FTX During NBA Game

Basketball icon Shaquille O’Neal was delivered legal papers for two separate lawsuits in the broader crypto and NFT realm on Tuesday—and was served while broadcasting an NBA game at what once was Miami’s FTX Arena.

One of the lawsuits centers on celebrities that promoted the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, including other high-profile defendants like former NFL quarterback Tom Brady and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” TV star Larry David.

Yet, the other complaint focuses specifically on O’Neal and his NFT project, Astrals, launched last March. The lawsuit alleges that Astrals NFTs offered for sale were unregistered securities and attached to promises made by the former NBA player.

The two lawsuits brought against O’Neal are led by The Moskowitz Law Firm and Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, who are working in tandem. Following accusations that Shaq was evading process servers and stifling court procedures, attorney Adam Moskowitz said that legal actions can now proceed.

“It is good that we can start with the merits, instead of the silly service sideshow Mr. O’Neal unfortunately created,” Moskowitz said in a written statement provided to Decrypt. “It seems absurd to have to go to such great lengths to serve Mr. O’Neal.”

The Moskowitz Law Firm said O’Neal had the process server “kicked out” of the Miami Heat’s stadium after he was served, adding that the event was filmed to “ensure there was no ambiguity.”

Representatives for O’Neal did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Decrypt.

Moskowitz’s law firm said last month that it had finally served O’Neal in relation to the FTX lawsuit, but O’Neal’s lawyers shot back weeks ago, claiming legal documents were thrown at the NBA star’s car instead of being delivered to him personally.

Meanwhile, the 54-page complaint against O’Neal for his ownership of Astrals contains six total claims, accusing the former NBA icon of violating laws like Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and the Virginia Consumer Protection Act.

Ultimately, the complaint claims that Astrals NFTs—unique digital tokens that signify the ownership of an item, often digital art—should be considered unregistered securities under the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Howey Test. The process for determining whether something constitutes a security can be traced back to 1946.

“The fortunes of the Astrals NFT investors, and the value of the Astrals NFTs, were linked almost entirely to O’Neal’s celebrity status and the success of his promotional efforts,” the complaint states.

The complaint contains pages upon pages of Shaq’s involvement in the digital assets industry, documenting his foray into the Web3 space and how Astrals allegedly led investors astray.

Astrals, a Solana-based NFT project, comprised 10,000 “metaverse-ready” avatars that would be supported by a DAO and a “story-driven, play-to-earn role-playing game,” according to a section of the project’s white paper included in the complaint.

The project was the brainchild of O’Neal, the lawsuit claims, and the appointment of O’Neal’s son, Myles O’Neal, as the project’s head of investor relations signals that the Astrals team viewed and portrayed the NFT project as a marketing opportunity.

The complaint focuses on the various ways O’Neal promoted the project—on social media and during musical performances as DJ Diesel—and how he stopped engaging with the project’s community after the collapse of FTX.

The last time O’Neal engaged with Astral’s community was on January 2 through the project’s Discord server, the lawsuit claims, when he allegedly posted a GIF from the film “The Wolf of Wall Street” captioned “I’m not fucking leaving.”

NBC Sports

Shaquille O’Neal finally gets served in FTX lawsuit

He was able to run, but he was not able to hide.

NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal, after eluding process servers for months, finally has received a summons and complaint in the class action filed against him and other celebrities (including Tom Brady) over the collapse of FTX.

Attorney Adam Moskowitz tells PFT that O’Neal was served on Tuesday night, during the Heat-Celtics NBA game that O’Neal was working for TNT.

Coincidentally, the arena where the game was played previously was named FTX Center, before the company imploded.

“He was personally provided the papers, so he cannot raise his absurd delay tactics,” Moskowitz said. “We watched the prior Heat/Celtics game, so knew he would be in the outside broadcasting booth where fans were right next door.”

We caught wind of the fact that Shaq had been served because a PFT reader who attended the game tipped us off to the fact that a kerfuffle of some sort had occurred. The reader found and photographed the front page of a copy of the summons.

O’Neal was served with the original FTX lawsuit filed by The Moskowitz Law Firm. He also was served in a new lawsuit over the Astrals Project, an NFT/crypto offering.

“The allegations in the new crypto complaint are very serious and detail how him, his son and his business partner all founded this NFT Metaverse and he made promises every week that he would be extremely involved, so the value of the NFTs would grow greatly,” Moskowitz said. “Once the FTX fraud was revealed, he ran away and has not been heard since.”

O’Neal has 20 days to respond to both complaints.

The Hollywood Reporter

Shaquille O’Neal Sued Over Astrals Crypto Ownership and Promotion

Shaquille O’Neal has been sued again over his cryptocurrency promotions, this time in connection to his Astrals Project.

A proposed class action filed in Florida federal court on Tuesday alleges that O’Neal violated securities laws by selling unregistered Astrals tokens. Investor Daniel Harper claims that the former NBA star “should have known of potential concerns about regulatory issues concerning the sale of unregistered crypto securities” but promoted them anyway to further his crypto empire.

O’Neal is one of several celebrity defendants named in a suit against founder Sam Bankman-Fried and stars who endorsed the platform. He appeared in ads for FTX and has been trying to distance himself from the company by saying in December that he was “just a paid spokesperson.” A dispute has recently emerged in the case over claims that he’s been dodging being served, with lawyers for the investors saying they’ve been trying to give him the papers outside of his home, workplace and car for months. O’Neal has denied the accusations.

In 2022, O’Neal launched the Astrals Project with his music manager, Brian Bayati, as CEO and his son, Myles O’Neal, as the head of investor relations. It aimed to promote investment in a virtual world in which users could socialize with others through unique avatars that could be traded through a marketplace, according to the complaint. Aside from minting and collecting NFTs, investors could also purchase them at an official marketplace for Astrals tokens. Prior to founding the company, O’Neal built his crypto credibility through his involvement in various Ethereum projects, including his own NFT series.

The suit details O’Neal’s promotion of the Astrals Project. In a series of NFTs called the “Shaq Signature Pass,” he touted that “there will only ever be 50 of these in existence” and could only be earned by participating in the community or bidding on Astral tokens.

“The Shaq Signature Pass is the first consumable NFT of its kind, and the signing technology is one that we think will have wide-ranging applications,” the promotion said.

O’Neal repeatedly promoted Astrals NFTs on his various social media accounts, according to the complaint. In one, he urged investors to “hop on the wave before it’s too late.”

The suit also claims O’Neal used the Astrals Project to promote FTX, which he issued to boost his own credibility.

Investors claim that there’s been a “steep drop” in Astrals tokens’ floor price.

The question of whether O’Neal sold unregistered securities will be considered through the Howey Test, a standard that emerged in a 1946 Supreme Court case for determining whether a transaction qualifies as an investment contract. Factors include the investment of money into a common enterprise where there’s an expectation of profits from the efforts of third parties. The suit alleges that Astrals NFTs meet all the criteria to be considered a security.

Responding to criticism within the crypto industry about a lack of regulatory clarity surrounding the issue, Adam Moskowitz, a lawyer for Harper, argues in the complaint that “securities regulation is not meant to be precise but is instead intentionally drafted to be broad and all-encompassing.” He adds, “Clarity is not just uncommon; it is deliberately avoided.”

Moskowitz also represents FTX and Voyager customers in proposed class actions against the crypto exchange firms.

Law360

Shaq Sued Over Promoting Astrals Project NFTs

Basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal was hit with a proposed class action Tuesday alleging his promotion of Astrals Project non-fungible tokens violated securities laws by marketing unregistered digital assets.

In the six-count suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, proposed class representative Daniel Harper says that O'Neal violated the Securities Act and securities laws in Florida and Virginia through his promotion of the NFTs, "a collection of 10,000 metaverse-ready 3D avatars" that are part of an online role-playing game O'Neal co-founded.

The suit says the NFTs are securities under the Howey Test, the principal method used by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to determine if a cryptocurrency is a security, because they're construed as an "investment of money in a common enterprise with a reasonable expectation of profits to be derived from the efforts of others."

Fortune

Shaq’s been on TV nonstop during the NBA playoffs—but here’s the strange tale of how he avoided FTX crypto class action papers for months

All weekend, the two process servers had been doing drive-bys at an estate 30 miles southeast of Atlanta in a quest to confront its famous owner. Since the 14-acre residence in the quiet hamlet of McDonough, Ga. had no intercom, and the fences surrounding the property made it impossible to approach the mansion nestled in the woods, the only option was surveilling the front gates by car. Time was running short: The three-month deadline for serving the summons and complaint fell the next day. To best corner the defendant, the plaintiffs’ lawyers were double-teaming him via dispatching not one but two licensed agents. Their routine in conducting this virtual stakeout: Motor by the entrance at frequent intervals, in separate vehicles, one following the other.

After witnessing no activity for almost two days, the duo at 4:00 PM on Sunday, April 16, were performing still another of their tag-team spot-checks when they viewed a black Ford Expedition with black rims pull up to the gates. Behind the wheel was their target, and one of the most recognizable figures on the planet. According to the affidavit from the server we’ll call “agent one ”—this account is drawn from the two servers’ attestations in the case—“I was able to directly observe [Shaquille] O’Neal as the operator of the vehicle. Mr. O’Neal was wearing green-colored, long-sleeved top.” The servers exited their cars and took positions on opposite sides of the driveway. Each man held up held up legal documents and “raised them into Mr. O’Neal’s direct view,” in the words of agent one.

But even the spectacle of two pursuers crowding his driveway while calling his name and brandishing papers didn’t get Shaq to stop. Wrote agent one, “Mr. O’Neal proceeded to drive around me at a high rate of speed.” Seeing that O’Neal had no intention of stopping, the server “tossed the legal documents at the front of Mr. O’Neal’s Expedition” and O’Neal “continued to loudly accelerate away.” Agent two recounts that O’Neal “swerved” onto the shoulder, “revving the engines as he fled the area.” The package of papers bounced off the fenders and fell onto the remote, two-lane country road, where the servers left them. Minutes later, a police car arrived; the officer explained to agent two that he was responding to a call about a “suspicious vehicle/person” parked in this location. The officer appeared satisfied that the servers were just doing their job.

The servers were hounding O’Neal that day to officially make him a defendant, and enable a judge to require his appearance in court, in a highly publicized, multi-billion dollar class action suit brought against eleven celebrities who’d famously promoted the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX. The plaintiff’s attorneys, Adam Moskowitz of Miami’s The Moskowitz Law Firm and super-lawyer David Boies of Boies, Schiller, Flexner, claim that they’ve already served the other ten top athletes and media stars, a group that encompasses Tom Brady, Larry David and David Ortiz, mainly months before, usually via the defendants’ lawyers in a courtly process involving little hassle. “Even in the most extreme cases, you don’t see this degree of drama in the mundane area of process serving,” says Alex More, a Dallas attorney who specializes in representing crypto clients. “But here, you have the combination of a legendary athlete, a case involving an explosive failure in the crypto world, and a hunt that kept making headlines. So it’s one for the ages.”

Trying to serve Shaq

Normally, you’d think that Shaq would rank as one of the world’s easiest celebrities to track down. He towers at over 7 feet, and weighs an estimated 350 pounds.

The big push to locate the star started in late February. The following account is based mainly on the details about the search provided in the plaintiffs’ attorneys April 7 filing seeking to serve him via social media, denied by the judge. The Moskowitz-Boies side first concentrated their efforts in Texas, since O’Neal was reportedly spending time in the state expanding his Big Chicken franchise. The servers found that Shaq owns a house in the Houston suburb of Sugar Land. They twice visited the residence when no one was present, learning from the license plate of a car parked in the motor court that it’s home to Arnetta Yardborough. She’s a local life coach and the president of a semi-pro mens’ basketball team who was Shaq’s girlfriend in the mid-1990s; they reportedly met when Shaq was high school star in San Antonio. Shaq and Yardborough share a daughter, Taahira, who grew up in the Sugar Land house. But as the servers were following a false lead. As they soon learned, Shaq doesn’t live there.

The servers couldn’t find any public record of another Lone Star state home owned by Shaquille O’Neal. But from an article in a real estate magazine, they discovered that he’d purchased a residence––apparently not registered in his name––in the city of Carrolton, north of Dallas. By Shaq’s standards, the place is something of a pied a terre. He bought it in spring of 2022 just after selling his 31,000 square foot, waterfront mega-mansion in Orlando. By contrast, the brick-and-stone Carrolton manse occupies one-sixth that size. Unlike the McDonough property, the Carrollton house sits suburban-like, right on a public street. The servers could walk right up to the door and ring the bell. From March 6th to 22nd, a rep made eight visits to the house, but Shaq was never there.

The server had left his business card at the residence. According to the plaintiffs’ filing, after the eighth visit, the server received an anonymous email stating, “Shaq lives in the Bahamas, u stupid fu–, give my regards to [name of the server’s wife.]” The account goes on to say that upon receiving the message, “[The server] was no longer comfortable attempting to serve Mr. O’Neal with process, fearing for his wife’s safety.” The text’s sender’s identity remains a mystery.

By late March, the plaintiffs’ lawyers had launched a second offensive in Georgia. From March 16 to 23, servers attempted to visit the McDonough residence fifteen times. But they were never able to get past the gates and approach the house. The plaintiffs’ side knew that Shaq was scheduled to do post-game commentary at the TNT studios for the NBA playoffs that started on April 15. Since the McDonough is his regular residence in the Atlanta area, and just a 45-minute drive up Interstate 75 to Turner Broadcasting’s Techwood Campus, they apparently figured that Shaq would eventually drive through those gates. The constant patrols by the double-teaming servers led to the standoff where Shaq allegedly roared away, leaving the documents that the plaintiffs had for months been seeking to place in his hands that performed thousands of dunks stranded on the country road.

In one of the most unorthodox moves in their crazy hunt, the plaintiffs’ lawyers sent the complaint and summons, along with a check for $50, to the Sheriff’s Office of Henry County, where McDonough’s located. Shaq’s been given an honorary position at the Sheriff’s Office, and he’s clearly proud of his role, having been photographed wearing what must be a custom-made shirt displaying his title as the Director of Community Relations. Law enforcement officials are authorized to serve potential defendants. The Office cashed the check, but sent back a notice of “non-service.”

Shaq himself hasn’t spoken publicly about the saga. Fortune reached out to his PR reps, and also to his lawyers for comments beyond those in the court filings, but received no responses.

The Moskowitz-Boies team engaged no fewer than four process serving firms in the search. Their reps attempted to personally serve O’Neal around thirty times at two homes—including his ex-girlfriend’s—that he owns in Texas and the place in McDonough, and camped to no avail outside Turner Broadcasting’s Techwood Center in Atlanta, where Shaq co-hosts “Inside the NBA” on TNT. Numerous FedEx packages containing the summons and complaint sat unsigned for at on the doorsteps of the various houses. The Moskowitz Law Firm lawyers even had friends search the Bahamas beaches when that threatening message from an unknown source claimed he’d gone to the island getaway. “We’d even send servers to the concerts and other events where Shaq advertised that he was appearing at DJ Diesel,” recalls Joseph Kaye, a partner at The Moskowitz Law Firm. “But every time we’d go, he’d somehow cancel.” Direct messages to his Instagram and Twitter accounts went into the ether, and six lawyers contacted by The Moskowitz Law Firm who represented Shaq on past or current matters expressed no knowledge of his whereabouts or declined to cooperate.

Now it’s up to the courts

What they perceived as brazen maneuvers to escape a suit on the part of regular folk bilked by FTX, when his co-defendants accepted service, greatly frustrated the plaintiffs’ lawyers. In a tweet posted in on April 13, Moskowitz fired at O’Neal, “You have been running from us for months. We have been standing outside your TNT studios in Atlanta all week, but your security guards won’t let us in. Only one [defendant] has chosen to evade service.” Moskowitz added that “it’s time” for Shaq “to defend your actions” to all the ”thousands of victims who lost their savings in the FTX fraud.”

On May 15, the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint once again listing O’Neal as a defendant. That move would require his attorneys to renew any motion to dismiss him from the case on the grounds that he was improperly served, as well as addressing the extensive new allegations regarding his promotion of FTX. To this point, Shaq’s lawyers have maintained that he’s never been officially served. They write in a prior filing that “Mr. O’Neal has not evaded service by failing to be at the residences where Plaintiffs belatedly attempted service or by driving past strangers who approached his car.” The lawyers cite that the judge in the case had already rejected the Plaintiffs’ request to serve Shaq via electronically over Twitter, Instagram or email because, he’d allegedly become unreachable by hiding out. Shaq’s counselors, Latham & Watkins and Colson, Hicks, Eidson of Coral Gables, hold that the April 16 encounter in McDonough did not constitute legal service.

Notably, a review of the docket shows that these attorneys accepted service for the other brand ambassadors they represent, including Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen and Larry David.

If the court agrees that O’Neal was not properly served, it will either need to grant an additional window for service, or dismiss the case against him.

The latter outcome would prove a setback for the plaintiffs by removing Shaq from the current suit, though it wouldn’t influence the class action versus the other defendants. It would force the plaintiffs’ lawyers to craft an entirely new complaint, soley against Shaq. The rub: The class action rules limit the plaintiffs’ recovery to the losses they booked only in what’s called “class or limitations period” prior to the filing of the lawsuit. Since the plaintiff’s lawyers launched the salvo targeting the eleven FTX celebrity promoters in November of 2022, an entirely new case targeting Shaq, filed in late May, would restrict the victims to seeking damages going back only from date as opposed to the November 2022 starting date. Hence, Shaq would escape a lot of the potential liability—client money that vaporized over six months, to be exact—faced by what would then be the ten remaining defendants in the original suit.

Since FTX’s collapse in November of last year, O’Neal has only addressed his role as a brand ambassador once. During an interview a month later on CNBC, asked about the complaint just filed by Moskowitz and Boies, the four-time NBA champ intoned, “A lot of people think I’m involved, but I was just a paid spokesman for a commercial.” Surprisingly, Shaq was anything but positive about crypto in general. “I don’t understand it, so I’ll probably stay away from it until I get a full understanding of what it is,” he explained. “From my experience, it’s too good to be true.”

The Wall Street Journal

Where’s Shaq? Lawyers for FTX Investors Struggle to Serve Him Papers

Shaquille O’Neal, the 7-foot-1-inch NBA Hall of Famer turned actor, sports analyst and entertainer, is all over TV and has millions of social-media followers. He is one of the most recognizable people on the planet.

There’s one group of people who’s had trouble finding Shaq, and that is the process servers hired to formally notify him he’s being sued.

O’Neal is one of several celebrities named in a proposed class-action lawsuit filed by FTX investors against the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange and the stars who appeared in its advertisements. The other celebrity defendants, including Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen, Larry David, Naomi Osaka and Steph Curry didn’t contest their service of process.

In that regard, they were layups compared with O’Neal.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs say they have tried to serve O’Neal at his homes and studio and tossed the legal papers at his fast-breaking SUV. They say he’s dodging them.

“In 30 years, I’ve never had to deal with this situation,” said Adam Moskowitz, one of the lawyers representing the FTX investors. “We are not going away.”

In a document filed in federal court in Florida, O’Neal rejects the suggestion he is dodging anyone. Instead, the filing says the plaintiffs haven’t properly served O’Neal despite “months and multiple tries.”

As far as the tossed papers, it says O’Neal simply “drove past the strangers lurking outside his home.”

Asked for comment, an attorney for O’Neal referred a reporter to the court filings.

In an interview with CNBC in December, O’Neal distanced himself from FTX. “A lot of people think I’m involved, but I was just a paid spokesperson for a commercial,” he said. (The other celebrity defendants have also contested the claims against them, and asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit.)

Being properly served in a lawsuit generally requires an authorized person to deliver a paper copy of the summons and the complaint to the individual personally.

Virtually no one is happy to see a process server—in the movie “Pineapple Express,” actor Seth Rogen plays a server who keeps a trunkful of disguises. Job postings for the profession often recommend surveillance skills and the fortitude to spend a lot of time in the car.

People sometimes bolt or hide when a process server approaches, said Steve Polak, owner of Sunset Blvd. Investigations, which does the task. Celebrities might ride in shuttles or limos provided by movie studios to avoid being spotted in their own cars, he said, and some wear hats, glasses, fake beards and fake hair.

“They try to avoid spotlight, but they can’t because they’re public figures,” Polak said. “Eventually they’re going to come out, and they’re going to be at an event, and we’re going to be there, too.”

Brian Ricks, owner of process-serving company Undisputed Legal, once learned an entertainer he needed to serve would be performing at Carnegie Hall in New York.

“He was on stage practicing,” Ricks said. “Walked up and served him.”

The actress Olivia Wilde was served custody papers on stage at a convention last year. Her representative didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Kristin Falkner, a process server with Clark County Process Service in Las Vegas, said she knocked herself out attempting to serve boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr., a fighter famous for his skilled defense, in a separate crypto-related lawsuit.

She visited his mansion in Las Vegas more than half a dozen times but he didn’t answer, said Falkner. She tried the gym where he trains; his entourage kept her out. She looked for him at the roller skating rink he owns, but had no luck there either. Finally, Mayweather’s lawyer got in touch with her client to accept the lawsuit on his behalf, she said. “I never even made contact with him.”

Representatives for Mayweather didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The legal team suing O’Neal filed court papers describing all their attempts to reach the star at his homes in Texas and Georgia, including at his former wife’s home.

They asked the judge if they could serve O’Neal by direct message over Twitter and Instagram. The judge blocked that attempt and called the request “frivolous.”

At one point last month, the lawyers tweeted at O’Neal: “We have been standing outside your TNT studios in Atlanta all week, but your security guards will not let us in.”

A few days later, the process servers thought they had gotten lucky, according to affidavits filed in court.

During a “drive by spot check,” they saw O’Neal leaving his gated home in McDonough, Ga., in a black SUV, according to court papers. The two process servers double-teamed O’Neal. They parked on either side of the residential gate and approached the SUV with papers.

One of them claims to have called O’Neal’s name, and both state they held up legal documents.

O’Neal allegedly rolled around one processor and drove down the lane. One of the process servers tried to throw the paperwork at O’Neal’s accelerating car, according to court filings. The documents fluttered to the ground.

Photos the process servers submitted to court show the backside of an SUV headed down a country road, and clipped white papers lying in the street.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs touted on Twitter: “UPDATE: Plaintiffs in the billion $ FTX class action case just served @SHAQ outside his house.”

Attorneys for O’Neal last week disputed that claim. They asked the judge to dismiss the case against their client, and argued the process servers didn’t identify themselves and that papers thrown at a moving car run flagrantly afoul of the legal requirements for serving a summons.

“Mr. O’Neal has not evaded service by failing to be at the residences where Plaintiffs belatedly attempted service or by driving past strangers who approached his car,” the lawyers wrote. “The Court should quash service and dismiss the claims against him.”

The judge on Monday denied O’Neal’s motion to dismiss as moot after accepting an amended complaint from the plaintiffs. O’Neal, however, can file a new motion to dismiss and can continue to challenge whether he was properly served.

If a person can’t be located or is in hiding, judges can extend deadlines for serving the papers. A judge may even allow for alternative service options. Depending on the state, these can include posting a summons and complaint to the door of a house or publishing a notification of the lawsuit—such as in a newspaper.

Law360

Investors Say Ex-FTX Official Bolsters Case Against Celebs

A Florida federal judge gave FTX investors the green light Friday to file an amended proposed class action complaint that includes new information from the bankrupt crypto exchange's ex-compliance chief, material the investors said rebuts claims by celebrity brand ambassadors that they are out of court's jurisdiction.

In a Thursday motion to file the amended complaint, counsel for the FTX investors said the new submission would include "crucial, new information" provided by Daniel Friedberg, the former chief compliance officer of FTX's U.S. arm and former chief regulatory officer of FTX proper.

Fortune

Former FTX chief compliance officer cooperating in crypto lawsuit against Tom Brady, Shaq and celebrity promoters

Dan Friedberg, the former chief compliance officer of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, is cooperating with the plaintiffs bringing a class action suit versus a group of sports stars and entertainers, Fortune has learned from a new legal filing. The lawsuit’s targets include, among others, Shaquille O’Neal, Tom Brady, Naomi Osaka, and Larry David.

Friedberg’s role in assisting the plaintiffs was disclosed in an amended complaint in the case, filed late in the afternoon of May 11 in Federal Court in the Southern District of Florida. The complaint alleges that important promotional activity originated from Florida, which could be an important issue in the case. That evidence could be especially relevant on the pending jurisdictional issues. (The attorneys for the plaintiffs are The Moskowitz Law Firm of Miami, and New York’s Boies, Schiller, Flexner. The firms representing the defendants include Latham & Watkins and Colson Hicks Eidson of Coral Gables.)

Defense lawyers argue that the case lacks jurisdiction for non-Florida celebs

The plaintiffs first filed their action against eleven celebrities—the list of others includes David Ortiz and Udonis Haslem—as well as the Golden State Warriors, in November 15, 2022, days after FTX collapsed. As Fortune has detailed, high-profile promotors and influencers supercharged the growth and adoption of crypto over the past several years. The plaintiffs contend that the FTX paid “Brand Ambassadors” who unlawfully promoted interest bearing accounts that were in reality securities, but that FTX failed to register as required by the SEC. Under Florida law, the plaintiffs assert, anyone promoting an unregistered security is liable for all losses customers suffered from holding the investment—for example, a drop in the value of a portfolio of sundry digital coins that fared poorly. The class action suit seeks several billion dollars in damages from the celebrities and Warriors.

Attorneys for the defense, however, are making two main arguments, the second of which has effectively put the case in limbo. First, they maintain that the suit should be dismissed because their clients made only generally favorable comments about FTX in their advertisements, and never once mentioned the accounts that the plaintiffs claim are unregistered securities. Since the marquee names didn’t push the product that allegedly caused the losses, the argument goes, they’re not responsible for any damages.

The second position applies to the promoters who don’t live in Florida, Curry, Osaka, David, and L.A. Angels pitcher Shoehi Ohtani, as well as the LA-based Warriors. All of those defendants contend that none of their contract signings, ad tapings or other activities on behalf of FTX took place in the Sunshine State. In a declaration filed on April 14, David stated that “I did not appear in Florida on behalf of any FTX entity nor did I take any action in the State of Florida related to the Advertising Contract.” The thrust holds that the suit has no “personal jurisdiction” over the non-resident defendants.

The non-residents are also claiming that because their business with FTX was unrelated to the state, the plaintiffs’ lawyers have no right to depose them or obtain documents regarding any links to the state of Florida. (That same discovery was previously required, according to plaintiffs’ papers, in the Voyager class actions pending before two federal judges in Miami.) So far, the courts are still mulling the question, and it doesn’t appear that the judge has yet required any of the defendants to sit for the jurisdictional depositions. That’s in contrast to what appears to have happened in the Voyager class action, where Mark Cuban provided a deposition. The plaintiffs also facing strong resistance from the celebs who do live in Florida. In their filings, lawyers for the celebrities argue that they have no obligation to provide depositions.

Where the crypto promo case goes from here

Friedberg was actually a defendant in the original complaint. And officially, he remains a defendant. But according to his declaration that’s in the court file, he reached an agreement with the plaintiffs that would free him from liability. Friedberg says in the filing that he called the plaintiffs’ counsel to “say that I wanted to cooperate and assist for the benefit of the FTX customers,” rather than submit a formal response, which was due that day. The plan is for the “class,” with the court’s approval, not to pursue possible claims against him in exchange for his assistance. In a declaration included in the new complaint, Friedberg explains that he’s cooperating with both the federal prosecutors in the cases versus FTX insiders, and the bankruptcy proceedings. He states that his assistance in the celebrities’ case would in no way interfere with his cooperation on the criminal and bankruptcy actions.

In the declaration, Friedberg explains that he was introduced to Sam Bankman-Fried by his father, Sam Bankman, a tax law professor at Stanford Law School. He represented SBF as outside counsel after the founder left Jane Street to start FTX in 2017. When SBF launched FTX.US in 2020, Friedberg joined full time as chief compliance officer. In that role, he oversaw a dozen attorneys and supervised three general counsels working respectively for FTX International, FTX.US, and the captive hedge fund, Alameda. Friedberg stated that on November 9, 2022, he received a call from the GC of FTX International saying that FTX faced an $8 billion deficit. Friedberg claims he’d believed that clients funds “were backed one to one” and was totally blindsided. He says that he resigned the next day because “I no longer trusted Sam, Gary [Wang], and Nishad [Singh].”

In the declaration, Friedberg asserts that “many of the activities” related to FTX brand ambassadors “occurred in, and/or were emanated, from our FTX offices in Miami, Florida.” Friedberg states that FTX maintained an office in Miami starting in early 2021, and moved the domestic headquarters to the Brickell financial district in 2022.

The Miami office, he says, was run by Avinash Dabir, a former NBA exec who served as VP of business development. “Mr. Dabir operated from the Miami office, and he was formulating and executing our important FTX celebrity partnerships,” writes Friedberg. It was Dabir, he notes, who landed a seventeen year deal for FTX the naming rights to the Miami Arena, home of the Heat, for $135 million. “The naming of the FTX Arena was an important centerpiece for our efforts to reach other FTX partnerships with celebrities,” Friedberg states in the declaration. “Mr. Dabir was responsible for creating, consummating and implanting deals between FTX and other partners…such as Tom Brady, Stephen Curry, the Golden State Warriors, Naomi Osaka, Larry David, and Shohei Ohtani.” Friedberg goes on to say that Dabir “deserves much of the credit for creating the idea and concept and collaborating with Mr. David and his team,” for the Super Bowl commercial “that was a very big event for FTX.”

In the amended complaint, the plaintiffs also includes the transcript from a podcast featuring Dabir, from late March of 2022. During the interview, Dabir discussed his strategy for luring celebs. “They’re generally so busy, so it’s hard to get their time. So when you have it, you want to have a plan as to what you wanna do. So we have a plan, right? We have a script. We’re like, ‘Hey, here’s the theme.’ Steph and his team involved throughout the process because they gotta be comfortable doing it.” Dabir also described his role in the orchestrating the 2022 Super Bowl ad starring Larry David. “When we saw the script,” he recalled on the podcast, “we were like, this is awesome, this script is awesome! And then we’re like, ‘We need to get Larry David…I don’t know how the commercial works if it’s not Larry David, right?”

It up to the courts to decide whether these connections are sufficient to allow jurisdiction over these defendants. Then they will be asked to determine if those accounts are really unregistered securities. That decision, if it happens, could determine whether some of America’s most celebrated and richest athletes will really need to pay billions in damages.

Los Angeles Times

Even at 7 feet tall, Shaq is anything but an easy target in the FTX fraud suit

Shaquille O’Neal is calling foul on the lawyers who chased him for months to serve a lawsuit accusing the basketball legend of duping investors in the FTX crypto exchange.

A legal document “tossed” at the front of O’Neal’s car as he drove quickly through the gates of his Georgia home doesn’t count as properly serving a lawsuit, his attorneys say.

The 7-foot-1 former Los Angeles Lakers star and NBA commentator is among numerous celebrities targeted in a suit claiming they funneled investors into a Ponzi scheme by promoting FTX’s unregistered securities.

O’Neal stood as a holdout among the group for not acknowledging receipt of the complaint despite what plaintiffs’ lawyers said were dozens of attempts to present it to him at known residences in Georgia and Texas and elsewhere, according to court filings.

A month ago, the plaintiffs’ lawyers said they were ready to try an alternative method after their process server received a threatening text message stating that O’Neal lives in the Bahamas.

So the lawyers sent an electronic link to the lawsuit to O’Neal on social media, arguing that should be good enough given his status as an active user of Instagram and Twitter.

They reasoned that he was clearly aware of the suit, having denied allegations of wrongdoing related to FTX in a December interview with CNBC, and they noted that electronic service is permitted under Texas law. But the judge wouldn’t allow it.

The Moskowitz Law Firm finally declared success on April 17 when process servers caught up with O’Neal outside his Atlanta home. The lawyers took a Twitter victory lap, declaring: “Plaintiffs in the billion $ FTX class action case just served @SHAQ outside his house. 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.”

Or so they thought.

O’Neal’s lawyers said in a filing Monday that the plaintiffs missed their deadline and that resorting to throwing the documents at his car falls well short of legal requirements. They asked the judge to dismiss the suit against O’Neal in its entirety.

Investors have “had months and multiple tries,” O’Neal’s lawyers wrote. “Mr. O’Neal has not evaded service by failing to be at the residences where plaintiffs belatedly attempted service or by driving past strangers who approached his car.” The documents landed on a public road, according to the filing.

Plaintiffs’ attorney Adam Moskowitz called O’Neal’s filing “really disappointing and surreal.”

“The video will show Mr. O’Neal finally being served, after many months of hiding, as he attempts to possibly injure the process server,” Moskowitz said in an email. “We expected better from an officer of the law. Mr. O’Neal and his lawyers need to stop running and finally deal with these serious allegations.”

Roberto Martínez, a lawyer for O’Neal, didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Moskowitz’s statement.

Bloomberg

Shaq Rejects FTX Fraud Suit, Saying Summons Papers Were Thrown at His Car

Shaquille O’Neal is calling foul on the lawyers who chased him for months to serve a lawsuit accusing the basketball legend of duping investors in FTX crypto exchange.

A legal document “tossed” at the front of O’Neal’s car as he drove quickly through the gates of his Georgia home doesn’t count as properly serving a lawsuit, his attorneys say.

The seven foot-one inch former Los Angeles Lakers star and NBA commentator known as Shaq is among numerous celebrities targeted in a suit claiming they funneled investors into a Ponzi scheme by promoting FTX’s unregistered securities.

O’Neal stood as a holdout among the group for not acknowledging receipt of the complaint despite what plaintiffs’ lawyers said were dozens of attempts to present it to him at known residences in Georgia and Texas and elsewhere, according to court filings.

A month ago, the plaintiffs’ lawyers said they were ready to try an alternative method after their process server received a threatening text message stating that Shaq lives in the Bahamas.

So the lawyers sent an electronic link to the lawsuit to O’Neal on social media, arguing that should be good enough given his status as an active user of Instagram and Twitter. They reasoned that he was clearly aware of the suit, having denied allegations of wrongdoing related to FTX in a December interview with CNBC, and they noted that electronic service is permitted under Texas law. But the judge wouldn’t allow it.

The Moskowitz Law Firm finally declared success on April 17 when process servers caught up with O’Neal outside his Atlanta home.

Or so they thought.

O’Neal’s lawyers said in a filing Monday that the plaintiffs missed their deadline, and that resorting to throwing the documents at his car falls well short of legal requirements. They asked the judge to dismiss the suit against O’Neal in its entirety.

Investors have “had months and multiple tries,” O’Neal’s lawyers wrote. “Mr. O’Neal has not evaded service by failing to be at the residences where plaintiffs belatedly attempted service or by driving past strangers who approached his car.” The documents landed on a public road, according to the filing.

Plaintiffs’ attorney Adam Moskowitz called O’Neal’s filing “really disappointing and surreal.”

“The video will show Mr. O’Neal finally being served, after many months of hiding, as he attempts to possibly injure the process server,” Moskowitz said in an email. “We expected better from an officer of the law. Mr. O’Neal and his lawyers need to stop running and finally deal with these serious allegations.”

Roberto Martínez, a lawyer for O’Neal, didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Moskowitz’s statement.

The case is Garrison v. Bankman-Fried, 22-cv-23753, US District Court, Southern District of Florida (Miami).

The Block

Shaq cries foul: FTX court papers 'tossed' at car mean he was never served, calls for dismissal

Shaquille O'Neal was so difficult to serve that class action attorney Adam Moskowitz celebrated in April when he finally gave the NBA star official notice that he was a target of a lawsuit against FTX promoters — or so he thought.

Weeks later, O’Neal now claims he was never actually served. Process servers tossed papers at O’Neal’s moving car, he said in a court filing, but never succeeded in actually serving him. The basketball legend is asking a court to dismiss the lawsuit.

"This purported ‘service’ is inadequate,” O'Neal's lawyers said in a court filing. “It should be quashed, and the claims against Mr. O’Neal dismissed.”

O’Neal is one of more than a dozen celebrities and sports figures being sued for promoting FTX, the now-bankrupt crypto exchange. Targets of the lawsuit, which was filed by an Oklahoma man who says he is an FTX customer include promoters like Tom Brady and Steph Curry.

Although O’Neal appears regularly on television, hosts a podcast and is a touring DJ, lawyers struggled to serve him with official notice that he was the target of a lawsuit.

According to Moskowitz, process servers “personally” gave O’Neal notice of the FTX class action lawsuit outside of his Atlanta home in April. But O’Neal’s lawyers, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, said in court documents that the papers never made it into his hands.

“Two process servers — neither of whom is registered in Georgia — saw Mr. O’Neal driving his car out of his residence. They crowded the road outside the double residential gate to his property, making it so he had to drive by both of them to leave his home, and then stepped outside their cars,” O’Neal’s lawyers said in court documents. “Mr. O’Neal — who never exited his car — drove past the strangers lurking outside his home, one of the process servers ‘tossed the legal documents at the front of’ his car.”

O'Neal's lawyers said in a court filing that he was never properly served.

Moskowitz, the class action lawyer, disputed O'Neal's account. He said the exchange was captured on video and went as far as to suggest O'Neal tried to "possibly injure" the process server in an email to The Block on Tuesday.

"It is really disappointing and surreal. The video will show Mr. O’Neal finally being served, after many months of hiding, as he attempts to possibly injure the process server. We expected better from an officer of the law," Moskowitz said, referencing O'Neal's role as an auxillary deputy sheriff. "Mr. O’Neal and his lawyers need to stop running and finally deal with these serious allegations."

It’s not clear whether O’Neal has video footage of the incident, as Moskowitz claims, or if he plans to release it.

This latest wrinkle in the FTX class action suit comes after a dramatic, months long effort to serve O'Neal. At one point, a process server apparently gave up on trying to serve O'Neal after receiving a threatening text message. It is not clear who sent the message.

In O'Neal's view, process servers did not give him official notice of the lawsuit before an April deadline and the case against him should be dismissed. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

“Plaintiffs have had months and multiple tries. Mr. O’Neal has not evaded service by failing to be at the residences where plaintiffs belatedly attempted service or by driving past strangers who approached his car,” O’Neal’s lawyers told the court.

Decrypt

Shaq Still Not Served in FTX Lawsuit, Lawyers Claim

Legal papers may have finally been served to Shaquille O’Neal in April over his involvement in promoting FTX, but the saga is not over yet.

Lawyers for the former NBA star have now disputed the legitimacy of how the papers were delivered to O’Neal, saying they were thrown at his car, and landed on a public road.

It represents another potential delay for lawyers at The Moskowitz Law Firm, who said last month they had tried repeatedly to serve O’Neal the papers in person but claimed the ex-NBA star and TV personality had been “running” from them.

"It is really disappointing and surreal. The video will show Mr. O’Neal finally being served, after many months of hiding, as he attempts to possibly injure the process server," Adam Moskowitz of The Moskowitz Law Firm told Decrypt. "We expected better from an officer of the law. Mr. O’Neal and his lawyers need to stop running and finally deal with the serious allegations."

O’Neal is one of several celebrities named in a class action brought by Moskowitz on behalf of FTX investors, targeting both Sam Bankman-Fried and a list of the collapsed exchange’s promoters.

While the likes of Larry David, Tom Brady, and Naomi Osaka were also named in the suit, O’Neal remained up until recently the only defendant not to have been served with papers. In addition to waiting outside his homes and workplace, lawyers tried to complete the process electronically, but this was rejected by a judge.

The issue finally appeared to be resolved last month when The Moskowitz Law Firm said it had been able to serve O’Neal outside his Atlanta home, and that the star’s own home security system would have recorded the incident.

However, legal representatives for the basketball legend said in a filing on Monday that chucking the papers at their client’s car did not count, and that the plaintiffs had therefore missed their deadline.

They argued that the judge should therefore dismiss the case against O’Neal.

They also denied that O’Neal had been running from the legal documents, saying that the plaintiffs had had multiple opportunities to serve them.

“Mr. O’Neal has not evaded service by failing to be at the residences where plaintiffs belatedly attempted service or by driving past strangers who approached his car,” they said, according to Bloomberg.

Insider

Shaq tries to dismiss FTX lawsuit, saying he was inadequately served court papers because they were 'tossed' at his moving car

Shaquille O'Neal is trying to get his FTX lawsuit dismissed, saying the way he was served with papers was "inadequate."

The basketball star was served last month after a three-month chase, according to tweets from the law firm involved in the case.

"Plaintiffs in the billion $ FTX class action case just served @SHAQ outside his house," The Moskowitz Law Firm tweeted on April 17. "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."

Now, lawyers for O'Neal are seeking to dismiss the claims against him. In a court filing, they said the legal documents were "tossed" in front of O'Neal's car as he drove out of his Georgia house and left "on the road where they landed."

Attorneys wrote in the court filing: "Mr. O'Neal has not evaded service by failing to be at the residences where plaintiffs belatedly attempted service or by driving past strangers who approached his car."

Adam Moskowitz, managing partner at The Moskowitz Law Firm, told Insider in a statement: "It is really disappointing and surreal. The video will show Mr. O'Neal finally being served, after many months of hiding, as he attempts to possibly injure the process server. We expected better from an officer of the law. Mr. O'Neal and his lawyers need to stop running and finally deal with the serious allegations."

Representatives for Shaq did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, made outside normal working hours.

In November, investors filed a proposed class-action against several celebrities and public figures who endorsed Sam Bankman-Fried's failed FTX. The suit names celebs including Tom Brady, Steph Curry, and Larry David.

FTX and sister company Alameda Research imploded in November. Senior figures at the failed crypto exchange, including cofounder and former CEO Bankman-Fried are now facing fraud charges.

After dozens of failed attempts to deliver papers to O'Neal, lawyers previously tried to serve him with an electronic link sent to his social media, Bloomberg reported. The judge presiding in the case, however, did not allow the method, it added.

Fortune

Investors lost billions betting on crypto. Now this lawyer wants Sam Bankman-Fried, Shaq and dozens of other celeb endorsers to pay the price.

Last October, Florida attorney Adam Moskowitz sorely needed what he dubs “extra firepower” to propel a high-profile class action lawsuit against the Dallas Mavericks and their owner, Mark Cuban. Moskowitz saw the move as essentially the start of a new legal campaign: targeting celebrities and influencers who had promoted failed crypto products on behalf of ordinary folks who’d lost, in total, tens of billions of dollars to those heavily touted schemes. In late 2021, Moskowitz had sued digital currency lender Voyager for allegedly selling deceptive, unlawful accounts. But in July of 2022, Voyager went bankrupt, and Moskowitz had little hope of getting much money back for the 3.5 million customers who’d lost an estimated $3.5 billion on the coins held in their accounts. So Moskowitz shifted course and decided to go after deep-pocketed defendant Cuban and the his NBA team. The Mavericks had signed a big endorsement deal with Voyager, granting it the naming rights for the Mavs’ sprawling e-sports venue in Dallas, and Cuban praised the then-thriving platform as an “attractive investment for novice investors and a perfect fit for Mav Fans.”

But Moskowitz’s case versus Cuban and the Mavericks stood stalled in bankruptcy court. Instead of allowing Moskowitz to seek damages, the panel sought to reserve recoveries for repaying the creditors. To keep the suit and his crusade alive, Moskowitz aimed to lure as a partner arguably the biggest name in the legal game, David Boies.

The founder of The Moskowitz Law Firm didn’t rate his odds of success as terribly high, given that at 82, Boies personally handles extremely few cases. But Moskowitz, ever the ebullient optimist, managed to secure an intro from a partner at Boies, Schiller, Flexner in Miami. Then he so captivated Linda Carlsen, Boies’ executive assistant of 40 years, by exalting the righteousness of his suit against Cuban that she immediately relayed the message to her boss. The promise of nailing rich and famous crypto boosters proved irresistible to Boies. After a slight nudge from Carlsen, he invited the combatant pioneering the field to lunch the very next day in Manhattan. Moskowitz marveled at how Carlsen had worked the “near miracle of getting David to talk to me,” and soon found an opportunity to express his gratitude. Moskowitz quizzed Carlsen on what she’d enjoyed on a rare trip to Miami, and when she recalled relishing the eponymous specialty from famed Miami Beach eatery Joe’s Stone Crab, the Sunshine State attorney sent her a sampling, heightened by servings of Key lime pie, for Christmas. “We don’t have a big opportunity to get them in New York,” Carlsen told Fortune. The culinary overture, jokes Moskowitz, helps ensure that the super-busy Boies “returns my calls in a hurry.”

Boies and Moskowitz dined with the former’s son and law partner Alex Boies and Moskowitz’ partner, Joey Kaye, at Estiatorio Milos, an upscale Mediterranean on the fifth floor of the Hudson Yards mall. “We ordered fresh seafood by the pound, though no crabs,” recalls Moskowitz. The jurist who represented Al Gore in the dispute over Florida polling that ended in a Supreme Court decision swinging the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush regaled Moskowitz with accounts of such coups as tracking down the camera shop that developed the original photo of Prince Andrew grinning alongside a teenage Virginia Giuffre, one of around ten victims from whom won large settlements in the Jeffrey Epstein sexual exploitation lawsuits. “David told me about his movie studio and his vineyard in California,” says Moskowitz. “Hearing all the tales and at the same time getting to know this legend in our business was pretty cool.”

By the time the group ordered coffee, Boies told Fortune, he’d agreed to become Moskowitz’s co-counsel on the Mavericks-Cuban case. “What Adam explained, and what attracted me to these cases is that they involve a combination of important legal issues and individual harm done to millions of investors who deserve better,” Boies related in a phone interview. “The celebrities used their credibility to promote very risky ventures. They said this is as risk-free as it gets, that it’s a faster, quicker, easier way to earn money than conventional investments. They pulled in a lot of average people, not sophisticated investors, to put their life savings and 401(k) funds into those ventures. The securities laws are designed to prevent people from selling instruments where they don’t disclose the risks, and that’s exactly what happened here.” Boies charges that the celebrities served as “shills” who broke the law by failing to “disclose the nature and extent of their compensation” in hawking the investments.

Together, Moskowitz and Boies secured a hard-won agreement from the Voyager bankruptcy counsel to proceed with their class-action case against Cuban and the Mavericks. In April, Boies and Moskowitz traveled to Dallas and split the seven hours allocated to deposing Cuban so that Moskowitz took the first five-hour session, and Boies followed for two hours, and repeated the tag-team process for former Voyager CEO Stephen Ehrlich. (The agreement still required that Ehrlich provide sworn testimony in the case, though they agreed to drop him as a defendant in exchange for his sworn declaration that he had no assets other than those he would contribute towards the bankruptcy recovery.) Cuban and the Mavericks have filed motions to dismiss the case. The Cuban-Maverick attorneys state in the filings that Moskowitz and Boies base their entire case on a single press conference where Cuban made only general favorable comments about Voyager, and never mentioned the interest-bearing accounts at all. None of the plaintiffs, they point out, even say they watched the event. The defendants ascribe losses by the account holders to the broad downturn in crypto prices during 2022, not bad advice from Cuban and the team.

As of this date, the attorneys could not share any of the substance of the depositions because they’ve been marked as “highly confidential” by Cuban and Ehrlich, and hence aren’t publicly available. The two attorneys have asked the court to permit them to file their amended complaint in Florida federal court, allowing a trial to commence early next year. But in the meantime, Moskowitz and Boies have already notched a victory of sorts. Says Moskowitz: “Celebrities won’t go near crypto ads now, and we’ve had a big role in that.”

Launching lawsuits against celebrities who endorsed crypto

By joining forces, Moskowitz and Boies have launched a broad legal attack that’s already muzzling the once-buzzing celebrity-driven hype that so charged enthusiasm for crypto. Their overriding strategy consists of pursuing celebrities and influencers for money lost by individual investors they could never recover in bankruptcy court. “First, we sued Voyager, and FTX is supposed to save them, and they go bankrupt,” says Moskowitz. “Two of the biggest players with the most liability implode, so it’s extremely hard for the small customers we represent to recover their money from the companies themselves.” For the new teammates, going after the crypto hucksters is the route to big recoveries.

The Cuban-Mavericks case was just the first of four principal suits where the two lawyers have locked arms. Their roster of defendants comprises the starriest of names from sports and Tinseltown. In November, they sued Sam Bankman-Fried and 11 celebrities who’d served as highly-paid “brand ambassadors” for his collapsed FTX exchange, a cast that included Tom Brady, Shaquille O’Neal, Stephan Curry, David Ortiz, tennis star Naomi Osaka, and CNBC personality Kevin O’Leary, as well as the Golden State Warriors. The suit alleges that all of this misconduct was directed from Miami, where it contends that FTX had its headquarters. During COVID, FTX swooped in to grab the naming rights for the Miami Heat arena, and used the prestige it gained as a big-time NBA sponsor to lure the famed athletes as brand ambassadors.

In March, Moskowitz and Boies filed a complaint versus a group of top crypto social media influencers whom, they contend, secretly got paid for championing FTX and its native token FTT on the likes of Twitter and Instagram, among them Graham Stephan and Ben Armstrong, AKA BitBoy. And on March 31, Markowitz and Boies took aim at Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange, its founder Changpeng Zhao, now the industry’s leading “statesman”; and Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler.

The suits spurred an outbreak of showbiz travesty seldom witnessed in serious legal matters. Armstrong lashed out at Moskowitz, asserting in a barrage of emails to that he’s coming “after [Moskowitz’s] law license,” and that his legal nemesis is “literally a walking piece of human garbage.” Summoned to a hearing in Miami that Moskowitz demanded to stop the “harassment,” BitBoy groused that Moskowitz purposely tormented him by “pulling me off a cruise” in the Bahamas and mocked the lawyer as “Mousekowitz.” The court sternly instructed BitBoy to cease all future attacks on Moskowitz and his team.

The quest to serve Shaq a summons devolved into a surreal episode that might be titled “chasing the phantom.” The process servers couldn’t find him for five months. “Here’s one of the biggest people you’ll ever see at 7’2” and over 325 pounds, and he suddenly goes invisible!” says Moskowitz. “He kept dodging our process servers.” The servers went to his house near Dallas, where he was residing while launching a string of “Big Chicken” restaurants in the Lone Star State, no fewer than eight times, leaving FedEx packages containing the papers, which never got picked up, only to learn from his housekeeper that he’d relocated to the Bahamas, where the servers failed to spot him on the beach. “We even sent the papers to the police department in central Georgia where he’s a Director of Community Relations with a $50 check. They cashed the check, but said they couldn’t find Shaq,” says Moskowitz.

The Moskowitz Law Firm finally served O’Neal on April 16 at his Atlanta mansion—on the ninth attempt there—handing the summons through his car window as Shaq pulled out of the driveway. According to Moskowitz, O’Neal threw the package back out on the street. Representatives for O’Neal couldn’t be reached for comment on the process-serving hunt. Famously, one of the few superstars who was courted by FTX, but didn’t sign, was singer Taylor Swift.

In all of these cases, Moskowitz and Boies cite the violation of two laws, contending that in many instances the defendants broke both of them. The first breach is illegally selling or promoting products that are really “securities” under the law, and must be registered with the SEC, but that Voyager, FTX and Binance marketed without approval from the capital markets chief regulator. The complaints focus on one main “investment,” interest-bearing brokerage accounts that they maintain are really “unregistered securities.” “Florida, New Jersey and other state laws stipulate that if someone sells or promotes unregistered securities, they’re liable for all of the losses customers suffered from the assets held, in this case, in the interest-bearing accounts,” explains Moskowitz. It doesn’t matter whether the “victims” were swayed by the celebrities’ ads or even saw them, he notes; you sell unregistered securities, you’ll be liable for all the money lost. It may sound illogical that a single promoter could be financially accountable for all the losses resulting from the sale of such instruments. But as Moskowitz notes, the framers of this legislation concluded that the responsibility should fall on those who promoted an illegal product, not on the victims. He adds that it’s extremely rare to have a confluence of billions of dollars in potential damages, and defendants wealthy enough to pay them.

Put simply, if the declines in cryptocurrencies that an account harbors exceeded the gains, the customer’s entitled to recoup the entire net deficit. If the courts deem the products securities, which is far from certain, Moskowitz and Boies could win giant settlements, given the wealth of the promoters and size of the losses that Moskowitz estimates at that $3.5 billion for Voyager and $5 billon at FTX. Though still to be determined, Binance’s potential liability, says Moskowitz, will also be in the billions.

The suits all charge a second unlawful act: skirting the federal and Florida state “anti-touting” laws. These statutes hold that people cannot promote stocks, bonds, or any other security unless they publicly disclose first, that they’re receiving compensation, and second, the precise amount they’re getting. This time, the standard for recovery is different than that for pumping unregistered securities. If found in violation, the celebrity or influencer is typically obligated to pay the defendants suing them disgorgement of the money received for making the pitch, plus interest.

In a best-case outcome for Boies and Moskowitz, the plaintiffs would recoup a big part of their losses on the “unregistered security” designation, which would yield a lot more money than just prevailing on anti-touting. “We expect to recover the vast majority of the damages we’re seeking because the celebrities have the resources to pay them,” says Moskowitz.

“I give Boies and Moskowitz a good chance of winning,” says Lee Reiners, a lecturing fellow at Duke University School of Law. “The main thing is that they’re giving the people who invested a chance for relief they’re not going to get from the bankruptcy court. It’s the point of the class-action process. For the people who invested and lost, the suits are their best and only hope.”

A class-action whiz

Adam Moskowitz, 55, views himself as a onetime little guy who’s mastered class action as a sword for the average folks now exploited by crypto tycoons and their paid cheerleaders. Moskowitz was born in Brooklyn, but when he was 3, his father left the family for good, and his mother moved on to Miami, where her dad was a plasterer who adorned many of the city’s celebrated art deco buildings. Goldie Moskowitz, who worked in a doctor’s office, was a dynamo who drove into what’s now the Palmer Trinity prep school unannounced and talked the headmaster into admitting her son Adam on a full scholarship. “My daughter goes there now,” says Moskowitz of the prestigious Episcopal academy. “When you first drive in, right next to the sign that says Palmer Trinity, you see the sign for the Moskowitz Tennis Center!”

As a senior, Moskowitz spent several weeks as an apprentice soldier in Israel’s Bow and Arrow program. “I learned to fire an Uzi and read battlefield topography and all that fun stuff,” he recalls. At Syracuse University, Moskowitz headed the debate team, and on a semester abroad in London, got to test his skills in a renowned crucible, Speaker’s Corner in London. “I’d go every Sunday and stand on a milk carton. I’d debate people from Arab countries about things like Israel’s war for independence, and the audience would push me off the carton. It could get a bit rough, but it was good practice for going to court.” None of the six top-tier law schools Moskowitz applied to accepted him, so he took a post-grad gig at Miami’s famed (and still flourishing) Bagel Emporium, where he drove a truck and served as a waiter. The clientele, he avows, constituted one of his toughest juries. “I’d have tables of 10 with people being extremely vocal in insisting that I make sure their bagels were scooped and double-toasted,” he recalls. After the yearlong “break,” he enrolled in the institution that happens to be across the street from Bagel Emporium: the University of Miami School of Law.

His love became class-action law as the embodiment of justice for all. “The whole idea is that it allows people with no resources to wield a weapon against the biggest corporations with the best lawyers—it can change history,” he says. Moskowitz advanced to partner at the prestigious Miami firm Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton, where he won a number of large settlements, including cases against managed-care providers that allegedly shortchanged doctors by automatically downgrading the billing level for the actual procedure performed to codes for less expensive service, and versus banks that received kickbacks from insurers for putting homeowners into excessively pricey policies. But his personal life was a shambles. “I was skating through life at 100 miles an hour, and drinking a lot, though on the surface appearing very successful,” he says. “I’d drive after drinking. My wife said, ‘You’re going to kill yourself.’ So 11 years ago, I just stopped.” That rebirth gave Moskowitz what he calls “the unity of purpose” to launch his own boutique firm, The Moskowitz Law Firm.

Today, he characterizes his home life as that of a family man writ large. “I have a ‘date’ with one of my four kids every week to go to a restaurant, say, or a Heat game, and we’re surrounded by eight dogs. I was so lucky to marry my amazing wife of 15 years, Jessica. I wasn’t nearly as confident in dating as I was in class action.”

In mid-2021, Moskowitz joined the leadership in one of the biggest cases in the recent annals of class action—and he landed a huge settlement for the same reason he hopes to win big for the plaintiffs in the crypto suits: the potential fruits of suing defendants rich in resources. The collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo building in Miami neighborhood of Surfside was one of the deadliest structural failures in U.S. history, killing 44 people including 16 children, and leaving 120 homeless. “The building had just $30 million in insurance, so at first it looked like we’d only get tiny amounts for the survivors and families suing for wrongful death, and certainly no attorneys’ fees,” says Moskowitz. But he learned from survivors that construction on a luxury condo building a few feet away shook the walls at Champlain. Though it was never proven that the project next door caused the crash, the builder was heavily insured, and agreed to pay around $200 million.

Months into negotiations with the 34 defendants, Moskowitz heard to his amazement that when the Champlain began to teeter, the person at the security desk failed to push the button activating newly installed alarms in all apartments. Fortunately for the plaintiffs, the security contractor was a large, publicly traded company, Securitas of Sweden. Securitas—again, well-insured—contributed over $500 million to the settlement. In less than a year, the plaintiffs’ leadership team obtained total payments of over $1 billion going to the plaintiffs. In the Champlain case, it was strong insurance coverage that saved the day. In the crypto cases, the money tree for shaking is the gigantic wealth of the movie stars and sports icons involved.

A Moskowitz-Boies victory hinges on a crucial ruling that’s yet to come

Surprisingly, the U.S. courts haven’t so far determined whether either the interest-bearing accounts spotlighted by the Moskowitz-Boies class actions (in which customers were paid rates up to 12% in return for lending their deposits in coins or fiat currency to a crypto company), or such cryptocurrencies as BNB, Ether or Solana, are actually securities. For Moskowitz and Boies, notching a big win hinges on getting the courts to take their view, and they’re pushing hard for a decision that, they maintain, their opponents never want a state or federal judge to make.

The legal standard for identifying a security is called the Howey Test, arising from a 1946 Supreme Court decision. Under Howey, the ultimate judicial body clearly sought to make the rules flexible enough to encompass financial innovations to come. Howey maintains that to qualify as a security, an asset must be “part of a common enterprise,” and be purchased by a customer “with the expectation of profit” generated “from the efforts of others.” If an asset passes the Howey Test, it’s classified as “an investment contract,” and rates as a security just like a stock or bond.

The complaints assert that the interest-bearing accounts fit all the Howey criteria. They claim that Voyager, FTX, and Binance offered them to broad audiences, and pooled their money to make investments, so the offers clearly belonged to a “common enterprise.” Clients specifically chose the accounts because they expected return or “profit” in the form of the interest the platform promised and paid. The gains, the plaintiffs argue, came from the investment and loans the platforms made with their sole discretion. CZ’s burning of his BNB, for example, is allegedly a way that Binance produces a profit for its customers, and the prospect of those profits—in addition to the trading discounts and other goodies—is a major reason folks choose the offerings that require holding the native token. Moskowitz adds that all FTX trading accounts paid interest. Therefore, anyone signing on to FTX was automatically enrolled.

Boosting the prospects for Moskowitz and Boies is that the SEC has consistently determined that these accounts are securities, and has already killed several of the plans. Early last year, the agency reached a settlement with BlockFi in which the digital asset lender agreed to cancel its interest-bearing product, and pay a total of $100 million in state and federal penalties and fines. Last September, the SEC announced it would sue Coinbase over planned lending accounts, and America’s largest exchange scrapped the project. In February, the SEC forced crypto exchange Kraken to scotch a program offering returns as high as 21%.

Reiners, among many top academics, also believes the plans meet the Howey Test as securities. “The SEC’s been clear and consistent for quite a while that interest-bearing accounts are securities,” he says. “I think the facts are on Adam’s side.”

The commission is also aggressively pursuing celebrities who promote crypto assets that are really securities without following the rules. Those rules are the same as for touting individual stocks: You need to say publicly that you’re receiving comp, and how much. As early as 2017, the SEC issued a letter warning celebrity endorsers of initial coin offerings that they risked violating securities laws. In October, the SEC charged Kim Kardashian with receiving $250,000 for endorsing the EMAX token and not revealing the payment, securing a $1.25 million settlement from the reality star; and in February, former NBA all-star Paul Pierce paid the SEC $1.4 million to resolve charges for making “misleading promotional statements” on EMAX.

So far, the SEC’s actions have been taken against prominent figures who tout cryptocurrencies. But with reason, Moskowitz and Boies hold that since interest-bearing accounts are securities as well, promoting them also requires the full disclosure the celebrities never supplied.

As for the celebrities and influencers, most have let their prestigious attorneys do the talking via court filings. “BitBoy” Ben Armstrong is among the few who’s spoken out; he vehemently denies that he’s received any compensation from promoting FTX. In mid-December, Shaq declared on CNBC, “A lot of people think I’m involved, but I was just a paid spokesperson for a commercial.” Cuban and the Mavericks and the FTX brand ambassadors have filed motions to dismiss their cases. The FTX influencers and Binance have yet to respond.

Though the opposing lawyers haven’t even addressed the “securities” issue, they’ve been successful so far in delaying any decision on the issue. Moskowitz and Boies had first filed a separate case in Florida state court against Brady, O’Leary, and Ortiz in an attempt to get a quick ruling on whether the accounts are indeed securities. “We thought the process would go a lot faster than in federal court,” Boies told Fortune. But their opponents succeeded in getting the case moved to slower-moving federal court on the grounds that the FTX bankruptcy is a federal court proceeding.

The move frustrated Moskowitz. “The other side is doing everything to prevent a judge from ruling on the securities issue, because they know what the court will probably rule against them based on all of the SEC precedents,” he says. But he plans to ask the federal judges in each one of the lawsuits to make a single, quick ruling on that one topic, and he’s hopeful a decision will come quickly, and in his judgment, ensure victory. A ruling that the accounts are securities would mean his campaign likely transforms regulation of cryptocurrencies, he predicts. “The ruling wouldn’t set a precedent, but it would be extremely influential with other judges across the country asked to rule on the issue,” he says. That the uniform hype once emanating from the famous has already gone silent is already a tribute to the Moskowitz-Boies joint offensive. Hey, any duo that can get Big Shaq running for cover must be doing something right.

BeInCrypto

Another YouTuber, Tom Nash, Served in FTX Lawsuit

YouTuber Tom Nash has become the latest person to be served an FTX lawsuit through Twitter after a court granted permission for it to be served electronically.

The crypto exchange engaged in major marketing campaigns and signed a number of agreements with well-known crypto influencers. Now, following the exchange’s collapse last year, those deals are coming back to haunt some influencers.

On Tuesday, The Moskowitz Law Firm tweeted Nash informing him that he had been served with the lawsuit. The Florida District Court allowed the law firm to serve Nash through the means of:

— Publishing the lawsuit on the firm’s website

— By tagging Nash on Twitter

— And, by his personal email address

Nash was one of 10 defendants in the lawsuit against crypto influencers, including Ben Armstrong (BitBoy Crypto) and Brian Jung. The lawsuit alleges the influencers of promoting FTX without disclosures.

Armstrong invited more trouble for himself by mocking the judicial system. After filing the lawsuit, attorney Adam Moskowitz alleged that Armstrong harassed him with endless phone calls, tweets, emails, and threatening social media posts.

Armstrong was supposed to make a court appearance regarding the harassment allegations, but instead posted a shirtless picture on Twitter with the caption, “I am supposed to be in court today. I’m not. Why? Because I don’t give AF.”

Shaquille O’Neal was a part of another $11 billion lawsuit filed by The Moskowitz Law Firm in November. The law firm claimed that O’Neal was avoiding from them for three months, not allowing the firm to serve him with the lawsuit.

Finally, Moskowitz served O’Neal outside his house. And they further asked him not to destroy or erase the security camera recordings.

The Moskowitz Law Firm is representing Oklahoma resident Edwin Garrison in both the cases against the crypto influencers and the other November lawsuit against celebrities such as O’Neal, football quarterback Tom Brady, and supermodel Gisele Bündchen.

Daily Beast

Crypto Influencer Blows Off FTX Court Hearing, Mocks Lawyer With Pig Pic

A crypto influencer skipped court in a lawsuit accusing him of promoting the now-failed crypto exchange FTX, and he is now trolling attorneys and the court with photos posted from a beach in the Bahamas.

Ben Armstrong, known as “BitBoy Crypto” online, is being sued by former FTX customers who claim he promoted the sale of unregulated securities through the recently bankrupted exchange. Former customers are seeking more than $1 billion from Armstrong and other popular YouTubers they claim were paid to promote the failed business. (Armstrong has denied promoting FTX.)

Armstrong, who boasts 1.45 million subscribers on YouTube, seemed unbothered by the proceedings. On Thursday, when he was ordered to appear by U.S. Magistrate Judge Melissa Damian, he posted a photo on Twitter from the Bahamas, writing: “I am supposed to be in court today. I’m not. Why? Because I don’t give AF.”

Later, he took shots at plaintiffs’ attorney Adam Moskowitz, posting a picture with a pig and writing: “GUYS I MISSED COURT BUT STILL RAN INTO ADAM MOSKOWITZ AND WE MADE UP!”

Thursday’s hearing was supposed to focus on Armstrong's behavior in the case and Moskowitz’s claims that he has been repeatedly threatened and harassed. According to the court order, Moskowitz alleges Armstrong made numerous phone calls to his law firm, posted insulting and threatening messages on Twitter and YouTube, and sent emails threatening Moskowitz and his family.

“After being placed under oath, Mr. Moskowitz testified that he was in fear of his personal safety and his family’s safety because of the persistent communications, messages, and threats allegedly made by Defendant Armstrong against Mr. Moskowitz, his family, and his law firm,” the judge wrote. (Armstrong has denied calling Moskowitz or threatening his safety.)

A lawyer who appeared in court on Armstrong’s behalf said his client was aware of the hearing and that he was “unable to explain why his client had not appeared as directed,” according to the order. The attorney, Jason Rindenau, argued that any perceived threats from his client were of “threat[s] of litigation,” not of physical harm, and that his social media posts were protected by the First Amendment.

Damian dismissed the First Amendment argument, writing that free speech rights “cannot be used as a shield to defend harassing, threatening, and dangerous conduct like that engaged in here.” She ordered Armstrong to appear in person before the court on April 24 or face sanctions, including contempt proceedings.

Rindenau told The Daily Beast that “the only so-called threat that has been made in any form is a threat of future litigation,” and that this was “simply in response to the language that’s been directed at him” by Moskowitz. But he added that he’d told his client to “take it down a notch” due to his “hundreds of thousands of followers whose behavior he has no control over.”

Armstrong told The Daily Beast via Twitter that he planned to appear on April 24 and is “looking forward to it.”

“A lot is going to be exposed and people will be able to start separating fact from fiction in this case,” he said.

Armstrong offered his own reasoning for his absence in a tweet thread Friday, saying he was on a cruise with 100 people who had paid to attend with him, and that it was unreasonable to expect him to appear in Florida on such short notice. He denied ever calling Moskowitz or threatening his safety, and added that he “never promoted FTX or even had contact with any employee or marketing agency about this.”

“I am being falsely accused in a lawsuit taking up my time where there is zero percent chance I do not eventually get dismissed,” he wrote. “It’s almost like the entire point of me getting included had been for a media circus.”

FTX collapsed in November of last year, wiping out $8 billion in customer funds over the course of just days. It filed for bankruptcy later that month. The company reportedly recovered some $5 billion of those funds, but if and how quickly they will be returned to customers remains unclear.

Moskowitz, meanwhile, is pursuing several proposed class actions against alleged FTX promoters, including a $5 billion suit against celebrities Shaquille O’Neal, Tom Brady, Steph Curry, and Larry David for allegedly endorsing the exchange.

Moskowitz’s firm made headlines earlier this week for serving O’Neal in front of his house after the basketball star allegedly evaded service for months. (O’Neal previously said he was not involved with the exchange and was “just a paid spokesperson for a commercial.”)

“FTX were geniuses at public relations and marketing, and knew that such a massive Ponzi scheme—larger than the Madoff scheme—could only be successful with the help and promotion of the most famous, respected, and beloved celebrities and influencers in the world,” Moskowitz told CBS at the time.

Law360

Crypto Influencer Defies Court Order To Appear In FTX Case

A former FTX influencer who has allegedly made threats to an attorney representing a proposed class of investors in the collapsed cryptocurrency platform defied an order to appear in court Thursday — tweeting that he did not care — and is facing potential criminal charges if he does not show up in Miami on Monday.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Melissa Damian said the harassment by Ben Armstrong, known to his followers as "BitBoy Crypto," toward plaintiffs' attorney Adam Moskowitz has crossed the line into criminal conduct and said she will be a making a referral to the FBI.

As the hearing began at 10 a.m., Armstrong tweeted, "I am supposed to be in court today. I'm not. Why? Because I don't give AF."

BeInCrypto

BitBoy Crossed the Line Into Criminal Conduct, Says US Magistrate Judge

One of crypto’s biggest influencers, BitBoy Crypto, is in new legal trouble today after failing to appear in court.

Crypto influencer Ben Armstrong, also known as BitBoy Crypto, could be facing a warrant for his arrest after failing to appear in court. He was due to appear in court for allegedly harassing attorney Adam Moskowitz.

Moskowitz is representing a proposed class of investors who are bringing legal action against a suite of celebrities who worked with FTX, including Ben Armstrong. Armstrong and others face charges of promoting the crypto exchange FTX and misleading investors without disclosing compensation.

Moskowitz alleges Armstong harassed him with “endless phone calls, Tweets and emails to him privately, and publicly by posting insulting and threatening posts on Twitter, YouTube and other social media.” Armstrong denies the charges.

Judge Melissa Damian has declared that the harassment of Moskowitz by Ben Armstrong has become criminal conduct, and she will refer the matter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Instead of the scheduled court appearance, the crypto influencer instead posted a shirtless picture on the beach to Twitter at 10:00 a.m. “I am supposed to be in court today. I’m not. Why? Because I don’t give AF,” said the tweet.

Judge Damian warned Armstrong to appear in court on Monday to explain his absence. Otherwise, she will issue a warrant for his arrest.

Armstrong also known as BitBoy Crypto, sent his attorney to appear on his behalf. Jason Rindenau told the court that Armstrong could appear in a month when he will be in Miami for the annual Bitcoin Conference.

Moskowitz alleges Armstrong left voicemail messages “fully of vulgarities.” According to the filings, in an email sent to Moskowitz on March 16, Armstrong wrote:

“Hey motherfu###. Guess you do know who I am bitc#. You are such an unbelievably dumb motherfu### that you are leading a lawsuit against me when I never even promoted FTX. Expect a counter suit bitc#.”

Cointelegraph

‘BitBoy Crypto’ intentionally misses court appearance to address alleged harassment

Ben Armstrong, also known as “BitBoy Crypto,” missed a court appearance ordered by a federal magistrate judge in response to the YouTuber’s alleged harassment of counsel in a lawsuit involving several crypto influencers.

Judge Melissa Damian had ordered Armstrong and his counsel to appear on April 20 to address the YouTuber’s “harassment towards plaintiffs’ counsel.” However, Armstrong openly mocked the order on social media, instead tweeting pictures of himself on a beach in the Bahamas.

According to various reports, Judge Damian warned Armstrong’s attorney — who was in attendance, as ordered — that she would issue a warrant for the YouTuber’s arrest if he failed to appear by April 24. The harassment case against Armstrong moved forward without him, with the judge reportedly referring the matter to the FBI.

Individuals affected by the collapse of FTX filed a class-action lawsuit against Armstrong and several other YouTubers in March for allegedly promoting fraud through the exchange “without disclosing compensation.” Moskowitz, the lead attorney representing the plaintiffs in that case, claimed that Armstrong harassed the legal team with “endless phone calls, tweets and emails,” voicemails “full of vulgarities,” and social media posts suggesting threats.

Amid court proceedings on April 20, the YouTuber continued to mock the harassment case and Moskowitz. However, he said that he was “not flying by the seat of [his] pants,” hinting that his absence from court may have been with the advice of counsel. He reportedly offered through counsel to appear before the judge in May.

As part of the judge’s order on April 20, Armstrong will reportedly be barred from tweeting about Moskowitz and the plaintiffs in the case. He previously compared the lawyer to an ambulance chaser and a pig in addition to largely dismissing the basis of the lawsuit. Cointelegraph reached out to Moskowitz for comment, but did not receive a response at the time of publication.

A crypto influencer with more than 1 million followers on Twitter and 1.4 million YouTube subscribers, Armstrong is no stranger to online controversy. He has insulted high-profile figures, including European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler, in addition to others affecting policy in the space.

CoinDesk

Taylor Swift Shirked $100M FTX Sponsorship Deal, Lawyer Says

Bustle

Elon Musk Calls Taylor Swift “Smart” For Ditching $100 Million FTX Sponsorship

Infamous Twitter owner Elon Musk, who is the second richest person in the world with a reported $180 billion net worth, paid a surprising compliment to Taylor Swift on April 19. After discovering that the 12-time Grammy winner reportedly backed out of a $100 million tour sponsorship deal with FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange founded by Sam Bankman-Fried that went bankrupt in November, Musk reacted with praise on Twitter: “I’m not surprised,” the Tesla founder tweeted. “Taylor is smart and her father is a well-regarded investment banker.”

Lawyer Adam Moskowitz, who is representing plaintiffs suing FTX, said on The Scoop podcast that Swift was the only celebrity that the company negotiated with who actually questioned FTX’s practices thoroughly. “Taylor Swift actually asked them, ‘Can you tell me that these are not unregistered securities?’” he said, referring to securities as in a tradable asset that holds value, like a stock or bond. When FTX couldn’t give a satisfactory answer, the deal reportedly fell through, which the Financial Times first reported in December 2022.

Musk’s approach to running Twitter since buying the company has been controversial, but he is correct about one thing: Swift’s wit in this situation. A December SEC filing revealed that FTX’s securities were indeed not registered, which is what she had asked about. Thanks to her not signing the deal, Swift avoided being sued with celebrity FTX endorsors like Shaquille O'Neal, Tom Brady, and Larry David, who are named in the $5 billion lawsuit against the company.

As for her father, Scott Swift did work as an investment banker for Merrill-Lynch as of 2012. It’s not known if he still holds this job, considering his daughter is a potential future billionaire (with a current net worth of $570 million) and her cat Olivia Benson is the world’s third wealthiest pet.

This is not the first time that Musk has commented on Swift, though the most recent instances were much more bizarre. On March 16, he responded to Swift’s Eras Tour rehearsal pictures with just a cigarette emoji. That day, a Tesla account asked if the two would make a “cute couple,” which Musk simply responded to with a crying-laughing emoji. Later, when Dogecoin founder Billy Markus tweeted, “taylor swift rules and if you disagree you’ll be kicked off the internet i’m pretty sure,” Musk decided to reply by writing, “Her limbic resonance skill is exceptional.”

The Block presents The Scoop

Tom Brady, Larry David took $100 million out of greed, says lawyer suing FTX influencers

Episode 37 of Season 5 of The Scoop was recorded with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Stephanie Murray and The Moskowitz Law Firm Managing Partner Adam Moskowitz.

Adam Moskowitz is the managing partner of The Moskowitz Law Firm and one of the attorneys spearheading a class action lawsuit against 16 different FTX celebrity ambassadors.

In this episode, Moskowitz breaks down the legal argument underpinning the class action lawsuit and explains why he thinks FTX's various celebrity ambassadors could be on the hook for billions of dollars.

New York Magazine

It Took a Private Eye to Find Shaq for an FTX Lawsuit

It’s normally not too hard to find Shaquille O’Neal. Over seven feet tall and north of 300 pounds during his playing days, he is one of the biggest centers to take the court in the history of the NBA. He’s also all over the place on TV, doing post-game analysis for TNT and ads for the 30-or-so companies he says he has endorsement deals with.

Shaq, though, has been a hard man to find for Adam Moskowitz, the lead attorney on a class-action lawsuit filed in November on behalf of the former clients of FTX, accusing celebrity spokespeople with sponsorship deals for helping defraud investors at the disgraced cryptocurrency exchange. In a recent court filing, Moskowitz claimed he has attempted to serve the hall-of-fame basketball player and Kazaam star dozens of times at several of his houses. (A judge denied his request to serve Shaq on Twitter and Instagram.) But after hiring a private investigator last month, Moskowitz got his man: Earlier this week, the attorney announced that Shaq had been served at his home in Atlanta. “The good news is his home video cameras recorded our service,” Moskowitz said in a statement.

Moskowitz claims that Shaq will now be required to appear in federal court in Florida to respond to the claims that he helped defraud FTX investors by promoting the exchange in commercials and at a music festival he hosts called Shaq’s Fun House.

“FTX were geniuses at public relations and marketing, and knew that such a massive Ponzi scheme — larger than the Madoff scheme — could only be successful with the help and promotion of the most famous, respected, and beloved celebrities and influencers in the world,” Moskowitz said in a statement. Shaq was more humble about his role in a December 2022 interview with CNBC: “A lot of people think I’m involved, but I was just a paid spokesperson for a commercial.” Other celebrity spokespeople who got served in the lawsuit included Larry David, Gisele Bundchen, Tom Brady, Trevor Lawrence, David Ortiz, Shohei Otani, Steph Curry, and Naomi Osaka.

Law360

Shaq Served In FTX Investors' Suit After Long 'Sideshow'

Shaquille O'Neal has been served with a lawsuit in which he is among several famous athletes and celebrities accused of helping defraud investors in bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, following multiple attempts by the plaintiffs to track him down.

The basketball Hall of Famer was served Sunday outside his Atlanta home, Adam Moskowitz, an attorney for the lead plaintiffs in the proposed class action, confirmed to Law360 on Monday.

U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore had set a Monday deadline for the plaintiffs to serve all the defendants or show cause that those who had not been served should not be dropped from the case.

CNN

Shaq is finally served in FTX investor suit after months of hiding, lawyers say

After months of attempting to serve Shaquille O’Neal in a lawsuit against celebrities who endorsed the now-bankrupt FTX crypto platform, lawyers for a group of FTX investors said they finally succeeded on Sunday.

“Plaintiffs in the billion $ FTX class action case just served @SHAQ outside his house,” The Moskowitz Law Firm tweeted. “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.”

Representatives for O’Neal didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

“A lot of people think I’m involved, but I was just a paid spokesperson for a commercial,” the basketball champion told CNBC in December.

O’Neal was the last of the celebrities in the class-action suit to be served a legal notice, according to court documents. The lawsuit, filed by heavyweight attorney Adam Moskowitz in November, accuses FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, along with several public figures who endorsed the platform — including Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, and Steph Curry — of defrauding investors.

Moskowitz has called FTX “a massive Ponzi scheme,” run by “geniuses at public relations and marketing” who enlisted the help of beloved sports and entertainment figures to promote it.

Last week, a judge denied Moskowitz’s attempt to serve the legal notice to O’Neal via his official Twitter and Instagram accounts after the NBA Hall of Famer repeatedly evaded agents hired to serve the documents in person.

“Mr. O’Neal’s conduct over the last 5 months in evading service in this action is unprecedented, and frankly shocking,” Moskowitz said in the motion last week.

FTX collapsed into bankruptcy on November 11 after depositors and investors yanked their money amid concerns about the platform’s balance sheet. Since then, federal prosecutors have charged Bankman-Fried and several other executives with orchestrating one of the biggest financial frauds in US history. Bankman-Fried, who was arrested in December and is out on house arrest, has pleaded not guilty to 13 counts of fraud and conspiracy. At least three of his former co-workers have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with investigators.

People

Shaquille O'Neal Served in FTX Lawsuit After Months of 'Hiding and Driving Away,' Says Plaintiffs

Plaintiffs have served Shaquille O'Neal after months of chasing down the former NBA star, the law office representing investors in a class-action lawsuit against the bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency company tell PEOPLE.

Attorney Adam Moskowitz's office tells PEOPLE plaintiffs were able to serve O'Neal, 51, on Sunday afternoon outside his house. In a statement, Moskowitz claims the Inside the NBA host "has been hiding and driving away from our process servers for the past three months," calling O'Neal's alleged actions a "silly sideshow."

"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 told PEOPLE. "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."

Representatives for O'Neal did not respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

O'Neal and several other celebrities – like including Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, Steph Curry, Naomi Osaka, and Larry David – were named as defendants in a class-action suit filed in Florida last November. The lawsuit was filed by investors who say the use of celebrity endorsements duped them into investing in the now-bankrupt FTX crypto exchange.

O'Neal, who has become one of the most prominent commercial spokespersons in the U.S. since retiring from the NBA in 2011, appeared in several commercials and advertisement campaigns for FTX. However, in recent months since the crypto exchange became embroiled in controversy and went bankrupt, O'Neal has tried to distance himself from the company.

"A lot of people think I'm involved, but I was just a paid spokesperson for a commercial," O'Neal told CNBC in December.

Moskowitz's office has called the now-defunct FTX company a "fraud" on social media and, according to CNN, "a massive Ponzi scheme" that used celebrities to recruit investors.

In recent statements and social media posts, the law office has claimed O'Neal had refused to answer the door at his house and that security guards posted outside TNT's studio in Atlanta refused to let them in to serve the basketball hall of famer his legal notice.

Entrepreneur

Shaq Served in FTX Lawsuit After Allegedly 'Hiding' For Months: 'His Home Video Cameras Recorded Our Service'

Basketball legend and businessman Shaquille O'Neal was served legal documents on Sunday in the FTX lawsuit, after allegedly dodging the paperwork for months. The lawsuit is targeting FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and the company's celebrity endorsers for defrauding investors.

Adam Moskowitz, co-counsel for investors on the FTX class action suit and partner at The Moskowitz Law Firm, said that Shaq was "hiding and driving away from our process servers for the past three months," per Coindesk.

"Plaintiffs in the billion $ FTX class action case just served @SHAQ outside his house," The Moskowitz Law Firm tweeted. "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."

Prior to the update on Sunday evening, The Moskowitz Law Firm tweeted at Shaq on April 13th saying that "all other FTX celebrities have agreed to receive their complaints," and called on the NBA Hall of Famer to have "courtesy and honor" in allowing the lawyers to deliver the papers.

The FTX class action lawsuit claims Bankman-Fried and other public figures defrauded investors by promoting the cryptocurrency in what ultimately was a "Ponzi scheme," per court documents. Other celebrities implicated in the lawsuit are Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen, Stephen Curry, and Kevin O'Leary.

Daily Beast

Shaquille O’Neal Finally Served in FTX Lawsuit After Hiding Out for Months, Lawyers Say

After months of evasion, basketball star Shaquille O’Neal has finally been served for his alleged role in promoting disgraced crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried’s now-defunct FTX platform, according to CNN. “Plaintiffs in the billion $ FTX class action case just served @SHAQ outside his house. 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,” The Moskovitz Law Firm, which represents a group of FTX investors, tweeted Sunday. O’Neal is one of a number of celebrities, including Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen, who have been implicated in the suit for helping promote what Moskowitz called a “massive Ponzi scheme.” Bankman-Fried is awaiting fraud and conspiracy charges after FTX collapsed in November, wiping out over $1 billion in client funds.

Insider

NBA star Shaquille O'Neal finally gets served FTX-linked lawsuit, ending a 3-month chase, lawyers say

NBA star Shaquille O'Neal has finally been served papers in an FTX-related lawsuit, ending a three-month chase where the former basketball player allegedly kept evading lawyers.

"Plaintiffs in the billion $ FTX class action case just served @SHAQ outside his house. 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," The Moskowitz Law Firm said in a tweet on Sunday.

Lawyers had claimed they were trying to reach Shaq, who fell silent after the FTX debacle, only to be barred access to him by security guards. "You have been running from us for months & all other FTX celebrities have agreed to receive their complaints," they wrote last week.

Shaq is one of many defendants in a class-action lawsuit that was filed in November shortly after FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange platform, imploded. The suit alleges that celebrity endorsers failed to do their due diligence before promoting FTX products to the general public.

Other celebrities including Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen, Stephen Curry, and Larry David have also been hit by the lawsuit.

Shaq has previously starred in an FTX commercial, and even hosted a music festival, Shaq's Fun House, that was sponsored by the disgraced exchange. He's tried to defending himself, saying he was never involved in FTX, and was merely a paid spokesperson.

FTX has so far recovered $7.3 billion and may relaunch its business during the second quarter of 2024.

Daily Mail

Shaquille O'Neal is FINALLY served after 'evading FTX lawsuit for three months'

Beloved Basketball Hall of Famer Shaquille O'Neal has finally been served in a class-action lawsuit involving high-profile FTX endorsers.

In a statement obtained by Dailymail.com, O'Neal was served outside one of his homes at 4pm Sunday after a three-month process to serve the NBA great.

According to co-counsel on the FTX class-action, Adam Moskowitz, 'The Diesel' 'will be required to appear in federal court.'

Earlier this month, plaintiffs including FTX retail investor Edwin Garrison filed a new motion in the US District Court Southern District of Florida Miami to serve O'Neal via alternate means.

Those included serving him through his official social media accounts after, according to the lawyers for the plaintiffs, 'is evading service by any means necessary.' This was denied by District Judge K. Michael Moore last week. Instead, a deadline of Monday was given to serve O'Neal in traditional fashion.

O'Neal is one of several high-profile celebrities, including Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen and Steph Curry, listed as defendants in a class-action lawsuit.

The suit was filed last November by Garrison, who claims he opened an account with the now-bankrupt crypto exchange after 'being exposed to' celebrity endorsements and their alleged 'misrepresentations and omissions.'

'Mr. O’Neal’s conduct over the last five months in evading service in this action is unprecedented, and frankly shocking, based upon on the extent of his public appearances, persona, and presence,' Moskowitz told Dailymail.com earlier this month.

Moskowitz also accused O'Neal of being deceitful in a commercial, so he could earn 'millions of dollars'.

O'Neal hosted a Super Bowl Party at Shaq's Fun House in partnership with FTX in February 2022, ahead of Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles.

Crypto World Daily

Shaquille O'Neal Finally Served FTX Lawsuit, Lawyers Say

CBS News

Shaquille O'Neal served in FTX lawsuit, lawyers say

Shaquille O'Neal has been served in a class-action lawsuit against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and multiple celebrity spokespeople, a lawyer for the plaintiffs said in a statement Sunday night. The announcement came several days after a Florida judge denied a motion to allow the NBA legend to be served electronically after allegedly dodging service for months.

"I wanted you to know the good news that we just served personally Shaquille O'Neal outside his house in Atlanta," Adam M. Moskowitz, the attorney leading the lawsuit, said in a statement. "The good news is his home video cameras recorded our service and we have made it very clear, he is not to destroy and/or erase any of these security tapes, because they must be preserved for our lawsuit."

Moskowitz and his law firm had been given a deadline of Monday to serve O'Neal, who Moskowitz said had "been hiding and driving away from our process servers for the past 3 months."

O'Neal, who currently serves as an analyst for "Inside the NBA," was the final defendant in the lawsuit to be served, according to the motion asking to serve him electronically.

The motion claimed that a process server had attempted to serve O'Neal dozens of times at his Texas and Georgia residences, and via mail to both the residences and his offices in Atlanta, where "Inside the NBA" is broadcast from.

Attorneys alleged in the motion that after an attempt to serve O'Neal in Texas, the process server "was sent an ominous and threatening text message by O'Neal or someone acting on his behalf." The text message also claimed O'Neal lives in the Bahamas, which the law firm then determined to be untrue, the motion states.

The lawsuit accuses Bankman-Fried, O'Neal and other celebrity spokespeople, including Tom Brady and Larry David, of defrauding FTX investors.

"Mr. O'Neal will now be required to appear in federal court and explain to his millions of followers his 'FTX: I Am All In' false advertising campaign," Moskowitz said Sunday night.

The four-time NBA champion has denied being involved in FTX beyond his sponsorship deal.

"A lot of people think I'm involved, but I was just a paid spokesperson for a commercial," he said in an interview on CNBC after the lawsuit was filed.

FTX, which collapsed late last year, shuffled customer money between affiliated entities, using new investor funds and loans to pay interest on old ones in an attempt "to maintain the appearance of liquidity," Moskowitz told CBS News in an email.

"FTX were geniuses at public relations and marketing, and knew that such a massive Ponzi scheme — larger than the Madoff scheme — could only be successful with the help and promotion of the most famous, respected, and beloved celebrities and influencers in the world," he said.

Yahoo! Finance

Shaquille O'Neal Finally Served FTX Lawsuit: Lawyers

Legendary basketball player Shaquille O'Neal has finally been served in a class-action lawsuit against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, a law firm for the plaintiffs tweeted on Sunday.

"Plaintiffs in the billion $ FTX class action case just served @SHAQ outside his house," The Moskowitz Law Firm tweeted. "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." The video recording has not yet been released.

Adam Moskowitz, co-counsel on the FTX lawsuits, confirmed the story following the publication of this article. Shaq getting served the lawsuit outside his Atlanta home ends a dramatic, almost outlandish chase during which the superstar was “hiding and driving away from our process servers for the past three months,” Moskowitz told CoinDesk in an emailed statement.

Attorneys Moskowitz and David Boies are handling the case, filed by an Oklahoma FTX customer called Edwin Garrison in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

The lawyers have said previously they'd tried to reach O'Neal by leaving comments on his social media platforms including Twitter and Instagram. Earlier this month, a judge had denied a motion to allow O'Neal to be served electronically.

“We just served personally Shaquille O’Neal outside his house with a copy of our complaint at 4 p.m.,” Moskowitz said in an email to The Block. “We took Judge Moore’s instructions very seriously and are glad to finally end this silly sideshow.”

Dubbed "Shaqtoshi" in an FTX commercial, O'Neal is one of several celebrities – including centi-millionaire financier Kevin O'Leary, football star Tom Brady and basketball star Steph Curry – who are facing a class-action lawsuit for promoting a “fraudulent scheme.”

"Mr. O’Neal will now be required to appear in federal court and explain to his millions of followers his “FTX: I Am All In” false advertising campaign, created by FTX advertising agency “Dentsu McGarrybowen” and FTX Global Partnership Agency “Wasserman,” Moskowitz told CoinDesk.

After FTX collapsed in November O'Neal said: “I was just a paid spokesperson for a commercial.”

CoinDesk has been unable to reach O’Neal for comment.

International Business Times

Shaquille O'Neal Finally Served FTX Lawsuit After 3 Months Of "Running"

NBA superstar Shaquille O'Neal has been finally served in a class-action lawsuit filed against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and other celebrity endorsers after "three months" of chase.

"Plaintiffs in the billion $FTX class action case just served @SHAQ outside his house," The Moskowitz Law Firm tweeted Sunday. "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."

O'Neal getting served the lawsuit at his Atlanta home ended in a dramatic fashion after lawyers claimed the NBA legend was "hiding and driving away from our process servers for the past three months."

"We just served personally Shaquille O'Neal outside his house with a copy of our complaint at 4pm," Adam M. Moskowitz, the attorney leading the lawsuit, shared the details in an email. "We took Judge Moore's instructions very seriously and are glad to finally end this silly sideshow."

"His home video cameras recorded our service and we have made it very clear, he is not to destroy and/or erase any of these security tapes, because they must be preserved for our lawsuit," Moskowitz noted.

The lawyer added that O'Neal will now be required to appear in federal court and give an explanation about his "'FTX: I Am All In' false advertising campaign."

O'Neal has not yet released an official statement regarding the matter.

The Moskowitz Law Firm, the litigation company representing victims affected by the spectacular collapse of the crypto empire FTX, made a public appeal to NBA superstar Shaquille O'Neal, claiming that it was not able to hand-deliver the legal complaint against the former basketball player after several unsuccessful attempts.

The Moskowitz Law Firm said that O'Neal has been deliberately evading it for months.

Last week, in what seemed like a desperate attempt to catch the NBA player's attention, the law firm tweeted that its representatives had been outside TNT studios in Atlanta for days to contact O'Neal regarding the legal complaint on behalf of some FTX investors for his supposed endorsement of the now bankrupt centralized crypto derivatives exchange.

The NBA superstar works as a studio analyst for "NBA on TNT."

"Mr. O'Neal: We represent thousands of FTX victims who lost their savings in the massive FTX fraud," the law firm tweeted.

"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," the tweet added.

The law firm claimed that O'Neal is the only celebrity endorser among the accused celebrities, who wasn't served with the legal complaint. Moskowitz said that O'Neal has been avoiding them for three months. "You've been running from us for 3 months & all other FTX celebrities have agreed to receive their complaints," the law firm alleged.

"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," it further told the NBA star.

Last month, lawyers David Boies and Adam Moskowitz wrote an email to defendants, saying that they have spent great efforts trying to get them served with the complaint.

"Only one, however, has chosen to evade service, in order to draw out these proceedings, or to otherwise attempt to avoid answering for these allegations," the lawyers claimed, disclosing that the said defendant was the 7-foot-1-inch tall former Los Angeles Lakers star.

The lawyers also claimed that they exhausted all possible efforts, including reaching out to O'Neal's last known legal counsel, but these attempts appeared to yield zero success.

O'Neal is among other athletes including Tom Brady, Larry David and Steph Curry who have been slapped with a class-action lawsuit for endorsing the failed crypto empire.

Yahoo! Finance

Shaq Finally Served in FTX Lawsuit After Months of ‘Running’, Say Lawyers

Shaquille O’Neal has finally been served papers in a lawsuit over his role in promoting FTX after lawyers accused the former basketball star of hiding from them.

Alongside fellow high-profile endorsers such as Tom Brady and Larry David, O’Neal was named as a defendant in the suit filed last November in a Florida federal district court.

It alleges that the celebrities “actively participated” in FTX’s offer and sale of unregistered securities.

Earlier this month, lawyers at The Moskowitz Law Firm–which is representing investor Edwin Garrison in the class action–said they had made multiple attempts to serve O’Neal with papers in person over the past few months, but had been unsuccessful.

“Basically, the largest man is hiding from our lawsuit,” lawyer Adam Moskowitz told Decrypt.

Last week, tweets posted to the law firm’s account directly addressed O’Neal, claiming they had been standing outside the TNT studios in Atlanta all week in the hopes of hand-delivering the complaint, but had been prevented by security.

“You have been running from us for months & all other FTX celebrities have agreed to receive their complaints,” The Moskowitz Law Firm wrote.

An update posted late on Sunday night said that O’Neal had finally been served outside his house, with a record of the incident made on his own home security cameras.

With papers now served, the lawsuit will be able to proceed. Decrypt has contacted O’Neal’s publicist for comment.

CoinDesk

Shaquille O'Neal Finally Served FTX Lawsuit: Lawyers

Legendary basketball player Shaquille O'Neal has finally been served in a class-action lawsuit against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, a law firm for the plaintiffs tweeted on Sunday.

"Plaintiffs in the billion $ FTX class action case just served @SHAQ outside his house," The Moskowitz Law Firm tweeted. "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." The video recording has not yet been released.

Adam Moskowitz, co-counsel on the FTX lawsuits, confirmed the story following the publication of this article. Shaq getting served the lawsuit outside his Atlanta home ends a dramatic, almost outlandish chase during which the superstar was “hiding and driving away from our process servers for the past three months,” Moskowitz told CoinDesk in an emailed statement.

Attorneys Moskowitz and David Boies are handling the case, filed by an Oklahoma FTX customer called Edwin Garrison in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

The lawyers have said previously they'd tried to reach O'Neal by leaving comments on his social media platforms including Twitter and Instagram. Earlier this month, a judge had denied a motion to allow O'Neal to be served electronically.

“We just served personally Shaquille O’Neal outside his house with a copy of our complaint at 4 p.m.,” Moskowitz said in an email to The Block. “We took Judge Moore’s instructions very seriously and are glad to finally end this silly sideshow.”

Dubbed "Shaqtoshi" in an FTX commercial, O'Neal is one of several celebrities – including centi-millionaire financier Kevin O'Leary, football star Tom Brady and basketball star Steph Curry – who are facing a class-action lawsuit for promoting a “fraudulent scheme.”

"Mr. O’Neal will now be required to appear in federal court and explain to his millions of followers his “FTX: I Am All In” false advertising campaign, created by FTX advertising agency “Dentsu McGarrybowen” and FTX Global Partnership Agency “Wasserman,” Moskowitz told CoinDesk.

After FTX collapsed in November O'Neal said: “I was just a paid spokesperson for a commercial.”

CoinDesk has been unable to reach O’Neal for comment.

Decrypt

Shaq Finally Served in FTX Lawsuit After Months of ‘Running’, Say Lawyers

Shaquille O’Neal has finally been served papers in a lawsuit over his role in promoting FTX after lawyers accused the former basketball star of hiding from them.

Alongside fellow high-profile endorsers such as Tom Brady and Larry David, O’Neal was named as a defendant in the suit filed last November in a Florida federal district court.

It alleges that the celebrities “actively participated” in FTX’s offer and sale of unregistered securities.

Earlier this month, lawyers at The Moskowitz Law Firm–which is representing investor Edwin Garrison in the class action–said they had made multiple attempts to serve O’Neal with papers in person over the past few months, but had been unsuccessful.

“Basically, the largest man is hiding from our lawsuit,” lawyer Adam Moskowitz told Decrypt.

Last week, tweets posted to the law firm’s account directly addressed O’Neal, claiming they had been standing outside the TNT studios in Atlanta all week in the hopes of hand-delivering the complaint, but had been prevented by security.

“You have been running from us for months & all other FTX celebrities have agreed to receive their complaints,” The Moskowitz Law Firm wrote.

An update posted late on Sunday night said that O’Neal had finally been served outside his house, with a record of the incident made on his own home security cameras.

With papers now served, the lawsuit will be able to proceed. Decrypt has contacted O’Neal’s publicist for comment.

Blockworks

Shaquille O’Neal Served in FTX Case, Ending 3-Month ‘Sideshow’

NBA Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal has finally been served by lawyers representing investors in a class-action lawsuit against FTX celebrity endorsers.

O’Neal was handed official legal documents outside his Texas residence at 4pm local time on Sunday. Adam Moskowitz, managing partner and class-action co-counsel at The Moskowitz Law Firm, confirmed the serving to Blockworks in an email.

“The good news is his home video cameras recorded our service and we made it very clear that he is not to destroy and/or erase any of these security tapes because they must be preserved for our lawsuit,” he said.

As of last week, O’Neal was the last remaining defendant named in the suit to be served. O’Neal joins Tom Brady, Larry David, Gisele Bündchen, Stephen Curry and Kevin O’Leary, among others.

The development ends a three-month hunt to serve the former basketball superstar over his role in endorsing the now-defunct crypto exchange FTX.

FTX pushed sweeping marketing campaigns, including Super Bowl ads, celebrity endorsements and naming rights to the Miami Heat’s arena. Some promotions reportedly promised investors greater returns than a typical deposit account.

The lawsuit was filed by a retail investor on behalf of other FTX users who’d been influenced to use the platform by celebrities. O’Neal’s “FTX: I Am All In” commercial, cited by Garrison, was created by New York advertising agency Dentsu McGarrybowen and global partnership firm Wasserman.

FTX filed for bankruptcy last November following an $8-billion wave of withdrawals, which quickly led to allegations of severe mismanagement and fraud. Former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to federal charges and awaits trial later this year, while close associates have struck plea deals to cooperate with the US government.

Lawyers had until Monday to hand over official legal documents to O’Neal after Judge Michael Moore, presiding, issued a deadline after denying a request to serve the celebrity via Twitter.

“We took Judge Moore’s instructions very seriously and are glad to finally end this silly sideshow,” Moskowitz said. Blockworks attempted to contact O’Neal via his philanthropy website but did not immediately receive a response.

The Block

Shaquille O'Neal finally served in FTX class action after three-month chase

Shaq has been served. After three months of chasing basketball great Shaquille O’Neal, lawyers handling a class action lawsuit served the basketball star and one-time FTX promoter outside his Atlanta home on Sunday.

O’Neal is among more than a dozen celebrities and sports teams who are being sued for promoting FTX, the now-bankrupt crypto exchange. He had at one point been so supportive of FTX that the company dubbed him “Shaqtoshi," referencing Satoshi Nakamoto, the name of the person who apparently wrote the white paper on Bitcoin.

Lawyers have been hunting him down for three months. O’Neal has been hiding in plain sight. He appears regularly on TV, has his own podcast and is a touring DJ under the name “DJ Diesel.” Still, process servers struggled to give O’Neal official notice that he is the target of a lawsuit.

Lawyers finally served O’Neal at his home on Sunday afternoon, and say the exchange was captured on video. The case was filed by Oklahoma man Edwin Garrison, an FTX customer, and is being handled by attorneys Adam Moskowitz and David Boies. The news was first shared with The Block.

“We just served personally Shaquille O’Neal outside his house with a copy of our complaint at 4pm,” Moskowitz said in an email. “We took Judge Moore’s instructions very seriously and are glad to finally end this silly sideshow.”

Lawyers had been so desperate to find O’Neal ahead of a Monday deadline that they asked a judge to allow them to serve O’Neal via Twitter, Instagram and email. After that request was denied, Moskowitz’s firm resorted to tweeting at him from outside the TNT studios in Atlanta, where O’Neal is a fixture on “The NBA on TNT.”

The exchange between O’Neal and a process server was captured on video, lawyers say, though it has yet to be released. O’Neal did not respond to a request for comment.

“His home video cameras recorded our service and we have made it very clear, he is not to destroy and/or erase any of these security tapes, because they must be preserved for our lawsuit,” Moskowitz said. “Mr. O’Neal will now be required to appear in federal court and explain to his millions of followers his ‘FTX: I Am All In’ false advertising campaign.”

Other celebrities targeted in the lawsuit include football star Tom Brady and “Seinfeld” creator Larry David. O’Neal, who Moskowitz said had "been hiding and driving away from our process servers for the past three months,” was the final figure to be served on Sunday.

The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

The lengthy struggle to serve O’Neal was so dramatic that lawyers claim one process server gave up after he received a text message that seemingly threatened his wife, Beth Shaw.

“Shaq lives in the Bahamas u stupid fuck give Beth Shaw my regards,” the text message said, according to court filings. It is not clear who sent the message.

The case illustrates how difficult it can be to serve a celebrity, even one who often appears in public. O’Neal has homes in Florida, Georgia, Nevada, California and the Bahamas, according to court filings. Lawyers had focused on his Texas residence because O’Neal is expanding his Big Chicken restaurant franchise there.

O’Neal has sought to distance himself from FTX in the wake of the company’s collapse. “I was just a paid spokesperson for a commercial,” O'Neal said after the company went bankrupt.

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to criminal fraud charges, while three other executives from the company pleaded guilty in federal court.

The Block

Shaquille O'Neal Hides In Plain Sight As Lawyers Try (and Fail) To Serve Him In FTX Lawsuit

Shaquille O’Neal, basketball star and touring DJ, has eluded being served in a class action lawsuit against FTX promoters for months.

Lawyers say they’ve tried to serve O’Neal dozens of times, and one process server even gave up after allegedly receiving a “threatening text message.”

The case was filed by attorneys Adam Moskowitz and David Boies. Neither lawyer responded to requests for comment. 

Crypto class action lawsuits have become more common in recent months, as major digital asset firms file for bankruptcy protection. Moskowitz is also handling a class action lawsuit against endorsers of the failed crypto lender Voyager Digital, targeting “Shark Tank” TV personality and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban for promoting the company. 

The Moskowitz Law Firm resorted earlier this week to tweeting at O'Neal's @SHAQ and @djdiesel accounts, saying "we have been standing outside your TNT studios in Atlanta all week, but your security guards will not let us in."

If O’Neal isn't served by next week, the judge could allow the class action suit to move on without him. The judge could also dismiss the case without prejudice, allowing the plaintiff to refile and try again, said Carrington, Coleman, Sloman & Blumenthal partner More. But there's a catch.

“It’s a big red flag,” More said. “Like, ‘Hey, look, if you're gonna refile this, you better make sure you can actually serve him first.’” 

The judge could also extend the deadline to serve O’Neal. It had initially been set for December, a month after the case was filed in November. Another option could entail roping in the Texas Secretary of State, where lawyers say O’Neal lives, to prove he is avoiding being served.

Decrypt

YouTuber Bitboy Ordered to Appear in Court to Face Lawyer’s Harassment Claims

Crypto influencer Ben “Bitboy” Armstrong has been ordered to appear before a Miami court next week to iron out allegations of harassment directed at class action attorney Adam Moskowitz and his law firm.

Armstrong was named as a defendant in a class action lawsuit last month, co-led by Moskowitz and attorney David Boies. The lawsuit alleges multiple online influencers solicited the sale of unregistered securities in promoting the defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX and seeks over $1 billion in damages.

“They will be dealt with, and this isn’t going to turn out for them like they hope,” Armstrong said via a Twitter message. “Once again, The Moskowitz Law Firm has shown they will blatantly lie and make up false allegations in attempt of getting attention.”

Moskowitz told Decrypt that he and his law firm are “extremely appreciative” of the court's decision to soon address the matter.

Requesting Armstrong be ordered to appear before a Florida court, Moskowitz alleged Armstrong has made daily violent threats towards the lawsuit’s plaintiffs and counsel that include both phone calls and emails.

“There’s some crazy people out there that will follow crazy advice, even if it’s not directly from the person himself,” Moskowitz told Decrypt last week, adding that his biggest fear is what one of Armstrong’s millions of followers could be compelled to do.

Additionally, Moskowitz told Decrypt that Armstrong’s conduct is unlike anything the attorney has experienced in his decades-long law career that spans the filing of thousands of class action lawsuits. He also described his behavior as “night and day” compared to other influencers named in the suit.

Cointelegraph.com

Judge Orders YouTuber ‘BitBoy Crypto’ to Appear and Address Alleged Harassment

A federal magistrate judge has signed an order requiring BitBoy Crypto YouTuber Ben Armstrong to appear in Florida as part of a status conference related to a lawsuit involving several crypto influencers.

In an April 12 filing in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Judge Melissa Damian ordered Armstrong and his counsel to appear on April 20 along with the legal team representing the influencers. According to the order, the conference was aimed at bringing awareness of “Armstrong’s harassment towards plaintiffs’ counsel.”

Armstrong, along with several other YouTubers, were named in a $1-billion lawsuit filed on March 15 for allegedly promoting “FTX crypto fraud without disclosing compensation.” Adam Moskowitz, representing plaintiff Edwin Garrison and others in the class-action lawsuit, has claimed that Armstrong harassed the legal team with “endless phone calls, tweets and emails,” voicemails “full of vulgarities,” and social media posts suggesting threats.

“The scope of the attacks (including death threats), which examples are provided in those filings and which continue on a daily basis since, necessitated Undersigned Counsel to open an FBI investigation into Armstrong, as well as the investigation files by local police authorities for Plaintiffs’ counsel and their families,” said Moskowitz.

Fortune

How Binance turned regular people who plug crypto into millionaires: Inside its 26,000-person influencer army

Growing up in Malawi, Grey Jabesi spent most of his childhood sleeping on a sand floor. But rather than pursue a path of hard labor on tobacco or cattle farms, Jabesi dreamed of a different life. Upon graduating from high school, he traveled over 2,000 miles to Cape Town, where he marked time as a gardener and laundromat operator while looking for a big break. The eureka moment came in 2013, when Jabesi attended a Reddit AMA where Bill Gates praised Bitcoin’s potential for regular folks to make routine payments in developing countries. The youngster was sold. He started accepting Bitcoin for odd jobs in coding and graphic design. Realizing that he could exchange the signature crypto for U.S. dollars and local currencies, he pivoted to full-time day trader and crypto evangelist.

Jabesi’s trading flourished over the next several years as Bitcoin’s price kept surging. In 2020, he learned of the “Affiliate Program” offered by Binance, the company that in just two years had raced from nowhere to reign as the world’s largest crypto exchange. Having built a following of upwards of 8,000 followers across platforms, Jabesi qualified as a recruiter who could earn big commissions on the trades placed by every user he attracted to register on the global Binance platform. With every trade his referred users make, Binance sends Jabesi rewards equivalent to as much as 40% in commissions. Now, Jabesi says, he makes between $3,000 and $5,000 every month. “I’m from Africa, and if someone sees me standing next to a Lambo dressed nice, at some place that they could never imagine themselves, it will make them believe that ‘Okay, this crypto thing seems to be real, if this guy can make it, I can, too,’” says Jabesi.

For now, the affiliate plans appear to be perfectly legal. Indeed, such competitors as Coinbase and Kraken have their own long-running affiliate platforms. Still, the bigger the program, the bigger the potential liability risks. The first is the danger of fraud. “A legal problem would also arise if the host is falsifying their own qualifications or their own trading record,” says Kevin Thompson, an MLM attorney at Thompson Burton in Nashville. “This kind of program creates a compliance burden for the company.”

Second, the future course of cryptocurrencies hinges in large part on how they’ll be classified, and hence regulated, in future. The courts haven’t yet determined if digital coins will continue to be governed under what’s long been its main designation as a commodity, or if it will be newly designated as a security. In recent months, the SEC has brought cases maintaining that digital coins are securities, and subject to the super-strict regulations governing the area. It judged CEL a security in its case versus now-bankrupt lender Celsius and took the same position on FTT in its action against FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried. The SEC is also suing crypto asset entrepreneur Justin Sun and his companies for issuing two coins that it deems “unregistered crypto asset securities.” In the same case, the SEC charged eight celebrities for “illegally touting [the coins] without disclosing they were being paid for doing so.” As disclosed in an SEC press release, the agency won $400,000 in damages from six celebrities who didn’t admit or deny the charges, including actress Lindsay Lohan and singer Shaffer Smith (Ne-Yo). Sun responded that the SEC action “lacks merit” and that “it’s no secret that the SEC’s regulatory framework for digital assets is still in its infancy and is in need of further development.”

In mid-March, The Moskowitz Law Firm and Boies Schiller Flexner, home to famed attorney David Boies, brought a $1 billion class action suit, on behalf of people who bought FTT, against nine prominent paid influencers and a talent agency who plugged the failed coin, among them “BitBoy” Ben Armstrong and “Meet Kevin” YouTube star Kevin Paffrath. On April 1, Fortune reported exclusively that The Moskowitz Law Firm and Boies Schiller Flexner brought a new action specifically against Zhao, Binance.US, Binance’s foreign companies, and one of its brand ambassadors, Miami Heat basketball star Jimmy Butler. Also named are two alleged affiliates, Ben Armstrong, a.k.a. BitBoy Crypto, and YouTube personality Graham Stephan. The suit seeks $1 billion in damages. “We filed the complaint on behalf of plaintiffs who bought crypto that the Binance influencers touted,” managing and founding partner Adam Moskowitz told Fortune. Moskowitz will once again argue that cryptocurrencies are securities. “We’ve been working on the case for a year,” he says. He’s suing in the Southern District of Florida under the Florida Securities Act. “It states clearly that if influencers promote the coins and have a personal financial incentive to do so, and the coins are unregistered securities, the influencers can be found liable for all losses suffered by people who bought those coins,” says Moskowitz. “The law wanted the burden to be on the promoters, not the victims. It doesn’t matter whether the victims were swayed by the ads or not.”

In a video posted after the suit was filed, Paffrath argued that though he promoted FTX, he isn’t responsible for anyone’s losses, adding, “People have to put on their big-boy pants and realize that if you make a decision because of something you heard online, that’s your responsibility.” Armstrong reacted to the suit with multiple tweets, in one calling Moskowitz the “bully who plays the victim.” In an email to Fortune, Armstrong wrote, “We have barely pushed the Binance affiliate program for the past two years. Sure, we were in good standing with them, but it’s not a super lucrative deal for us.” For its part, Binance wrote to Fortune in response that: “Binance is committed to a safe and secure platform for its global users. We will not comment on the pending litigation and plan to vigorously contest the untrue allegations in this lawsuit.” Fortune reached out to the Miami Heat’s front office requesting comment from Butler on the lawsuit. At the time this story went to press, we hadn’t received a response, and Butler’s lawyers had yet to contact the attorneys for the plaintiffs.

The penalty for “aiding and abetting” the sale of unregistered securities is what’s called “rescissory damages.” That judgment could make the influencers liable for the total amount of the unregistered security purchases, or total victim losses. The penalties could apply to the affiliates who championed those coins to their invitees. Moskowitz asserts that the requirement wouldn’t just extend to affiliates at Binance’s relatively small U.S. arm, but to affiliates working for the global exchange. “Internal evidence recently uncovered confirms that it was Binance’s main objective to target and conquer the U.S. investor market,” says Moskowitz. “The suit will apply not just to U.S. citizens and residents who were victims but even to non-U.S. citizens.” (Of course, it’s not at all certain that the Florida court will rule that digital coins are securities, and that finding is crucial to the success of the suit. But Moskowitz believes that the multiple coins-as-securities cases brought by the SEC greatly boost his chances of success.)

Once again, the outcome of the action is highly uncertain. But a ruling in the plaintiffs’ favor could deal a death blow to Binance’s and all other crypto affiliate networks.

Essentially Sports

“Fled to the Bahamas”: Amid $8,920,000,000 Trouble with Tom Brady, Shaquille O’Neal Accused of “Hiding” Yet Again

The world mostly gets to see the fun-loving and joyous side of Shaquille O’Neal’s personality. There are also times when Shaq ends up touching people’s hearts with his generosity and kindness of spirit. However, recent accusations against the Los Angeles Lakers legend may somewhat change how people end up perceiving him in the long run.

Shaquille O’Neal has been extremely active since he retired from the NBA. One of the best to ever transition from a pro athlete to a businessman and a television personality, O’Neal has a number of commercials under his belt. However, it looks like one of those is going to cost him dearly.

Shaquille O’Neal was actively involved in the promotion of the cryptocurrency exchange company, FTX. The four-time NBA champion even did a promotional advertisement for the crypto hedge fund.

Shaq’s commercial with FTX claimed that he was “All in” with the company. However, since its downfall, the Lakers legend has distanced himself from cryptocurrency. He even told reporters from CNBC that he did not understand crypto, despite partnering with crypto-related companies.

Now the company is no longer in business after claiming that about $8.9 billion in customer funds is missing. Meanwhile, a class-action lawsuit has been filed against the company’s celebrity endorsers. The defendants in the lawsuit include popular figures like Shaquille O’Neal, Tom Brady, Larry David, Giselle Bündchen, Kevin O’Leary and even Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry.

The lawsuit states that these celebrities ‘actively participated’ in the ‘offer and sale of unregistered securities’ when they chose to promote FTX. Adam Moskowitz, one of the lawyers representing Edwin Garrison in the FTX lawsuit, said that the firm has been trying to serve the lawsuit to Shaq for quite some time now without any success.

In fact, the NBA legend has been accused of hiding by the plaintiffs’ attorneys to avoid service. Incidentally, a defendant has to be served the papers of a lawsuit in person to begin legal proceedings.

Shaquille O’Neal recently underwent hip replacement surgery when he was accused of hiding from being served. According to Moskowitz, Shaq had “already fled to the Bahamas” with the help of his security personnel when the firm tried to reach him at his Orlando residence.

He added, “Basically, the largest man is hiding from our lawsuit,” as he discussed alternate methods to serve Shaquille O’Neal. Multiple attempts have been made in order to serve Shaq, the only defendant whom the firm still has not been able to reach in person.

The Moskowitz Law Firm even tried the Big Diesel’s NBA studio, a few of his residences, as well as the places he has appeared for promotional events. Let’s see how long this game of cat and mouse continues!

Law360

FTX Investors Seek Approval Of Serving Shaq Via DM

A proposed class of investors who purchased yield-bearing accounts from now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX asked a Miami federal judge Friday to approve service of their securities suit via direct messages on social media on former professional basketball player Shaquille O'Neal, who is accused of violating state and federal laws by promoting the investments alongside other celebrities.

In their motion, attorneys representing seven individual FTX investors and three proposed classes of FTX yield bearing account buyers asked U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore to approve service of the onetime Los Angeles Lakers center via "various electronic means that are reasonably calculated to provide O'Neal with additional actual notice" of the suit, including by direct messages to his verified social media accounts.

"Mr. O'Neal's conduct over the last 5 months in evading service in this action is unprecedented, and frankly shocking, based upon the extent of his public appearances, persona, and presence," the investors said, adding that O'Neal is the sole remaining defendant in the suit who hasn't been served.

Daily Mail

Shaquille O'Neal is 'EVADING FTX lawsuit service by any means necessary,' claims plaintiffs' lawyers

Beloved Basketball Hall of Famer and TV personality, Shaquille O'Neal, is once again accused of repeatedly avoiding being served in a class-action lawsuit involving high-profile FTX endorsers.

In a new motion obtained by Dailymail.com, plaintiffs including FTX retail investor Edwin Garrison have filed a new motion in the US District Court Southern District of Florida Miami to serve O'Neal via alternate means.

Those include serving him through his official social media accounts after, according to the lawyers for the plaintiffs, 'is evading service by any means necessary.'

O'Neal is one of several high-profile celebrities, including Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen and Steph Curry, listed as defendants in a class-action lawsuit.

The suit was filed last November by Garrison, who claims he opened an account with the now-bankrupt crypto exchange after 'being exposed to' celebrity endorsements and their alleged 'misrepresentations and omissions.'

According to Garrison's lawyers, all of the defendants except O'Neal have been served.

'He has not allowed himself to be served with process, has not had any counsel confirm that they will represent him in this action, or otherwise appeared in this action,' the motion obtained by Dailymail.com read.

'Our process server has also been trying to track Mr. O’Neal based upon various posts on his social media.'

'Mr. O’Neal’s conduct over the last five months in evading service in this action is unprecedented, and frankly shocking, based upon on the extent of his public appearances, persona, and presence,' Adam Moskowitz, co-lead counsel on the FTX class-actions told Dailymail.com.

'Accordingly, given the circumstances, substitute service of process through social media pursuant to Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 106(b)(2) is necessary to complete service of process on Defendant O’Neal. This case needs to proceed.'

Moskowitz also accused O'Neal of being deceitful in a commercial, so he could earn 'millions of dollars'.

O'Neal hosted a Super Bowl Party at Shaq's Fun House in partnership with FTX in February 2022, ahead of Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles.

FTX was a high-profile cryptocurrency exchange that made major inroads with investors, thanks to celebrity endorsements. On November 11, it filed for bankruptcy.

Awful Announcing

FTX plaintiffs claim Shaq has been evading lawsuit service for five months, call his conduct ‘frankly shocking’

Back in November, a class-action lawsuit was filed against celebrities who had represented bankrupt cryptocurrency trading platform FTX in advertisements. That lawsuit named Larry David (who appeared in the company’s Super Bowl LVI ad) and a host of sports stars, including Tom Brady, Steph Curry, Trevor Lawrence, David Ortiz, Shohei Ohtani, and more. Five months later, all of those stars and more named have been served with the lawsuit, except for NBA star turned TNT analyst Shaquille O’Neal.

That led to quite the court filing this week. There, the plaintiffs detailed a myriad of issues they say they have faced in “dozens of attempts” to servea O’Neal with a physical copy of the lawsuit, even including a text referencing the process server’s wife. They asked the court for permission to serve him digitally instead. The Athletic legal analyst Daniel Wallach detailed this in a Twitter thread Friday.

This isn’t the first discussion of O’Neal avoiding service here. Last month, there were several pieces written about the plaintiffs’ lawyers saying O’Neal was hiding from service, and that he was the only one not yet served even at that point. That included quite the comment from attorney Adam Moskowitz to Sarah Emerson at Forbes, which ran in a piece titled “Shaq May Be Hiding In His House To Avoid FTX Lawsuit“:

“It is really astonishing the measures he has gone [to] to avoid service of our complaint,” attorney Adam Moskowitz told Forbes. “The irony is that the admitted facts against him are probably the worst against any of the FTX brand ambassadors.”

Of course, this is a filing from the plaintiffs’ side, and it doesn’t include a response from O’Neal. We’ll see if they get the ruling they’re seeking to digitally serve O’Neal. That has been allowed before in some cases, but it’s more typical to see it with anonymous accounts on the internet. O’Neal is far from anonymous, especially with his regular NBA on TNT appearances, and he’s also been in some high-profile places during the course of this, including various DJ sets, his Shaq’s Fun House party ahead of the Super Bowl, and the NBA’s All-Star Weekend (he’s seen above at All-Star Saturday Night). So it is curious that he hasn’t yet been served.

The lawsuit here alleges that FTX and ex-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (who are also named as defendants) targeted “unsophisticated investors” with these celebrity endorsements. One of the lines in the lawyers’ November filing was “Part of the scheme employed by the FTX Entities involved utilizing some of the biggest names in sports and entertainment — like these Defendants — to raise funds and drive American consumers to invest.” We’ll see what this winds up leading to, but we may have to wait until they’re able to serve O’Neal in one manner or another.

Yahoo! Finance

Lawyer Says He’s Called the FBI on Bitboy Over Threatening Emails, Calls and Tweets

Lawyer Adam Moskowitz says he feels “threatened” by influencer Ben “Bitboy” Armstrong—and he’s contacted the FBI and local police because he’s concerned for his and his family’s safety.

Moskowitz told Decrypt in an interview that the threats came rolling in after his law firm filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of its clients against a number of influencers, including Armstrong, back in March. Moskowitz’s clients are seeking over $1 billion in damages and allege that Armstrong and others promoted the sale of unregistered securities due to their paid sponsorships with the now-defunct crypto exchange FTX.

“My family and I have never been threatened [before this], whether in a court of law or outside a court of law. So I take this very seriously. I’ve informed the FBI, and I’ve informed our local Pinecrest Police,” Moskowitz told Decrypt, referring to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the police department in his area of Pinecrest, Florida.

“I do fear for what may happen and what, even worse, maybe one of his followers may do,” the attorney said. “If they want to follow one of these influencers, obviously, they have influence over people and we see all the time how people can incite violence through the internet.” The FBI and Pinecrest Police have not yet responded to Decrypt’s requests for comment.

According to a court filing Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in the Miami division of the Southern District of Florida, Armstrong has left voicemails with The Moskowitz Law Firm that are “full of vulgarities,” including one where Armstrong states, “We’re going to have First Amendment protesters around your house 24/7 day and night.” The filing also states that Armstrong left another message claiming that the “home addresses” of Moskowitz and his colleagues are “being circulated on Reddit.”

Decrypt

Lawyer Says He’s Called the FBI on Bitboy Over Threatening Emails, Calls and Tweets

Lawyer Adam Moskowitz says he feels “threatened” by influencer Ben “Bitboy” Armstrong—and he’s contacted the FBI and local police because he’s concerned for his and his family’s safety.

Moskowitz told Decrypt in an interview that the threats came rolling in after his law firm filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of its clients against a number of influencers, including Armstrong, back in March. Moskowitz’s clients are seeking over $1 billion in damages and allege that Armstrong and others promoted the sale of unregistered securities due to their paid sponsorships with the now-defunct crypto exchange FTX.

“My family and I have never been threatened [before this], whether in a court of law or outside a court of law. So I take this very seriously. I’ve informed the FBI, and I’ve informed our local Pinecrest Police,” Moskowitz told Decrypt, referring to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the police department in his area of Pinecrest, Florida.

“I do fear for what may happen and what, even worse, maybe one of his followers may do,” the attorney said. “If they want to follow one of these influencers, obviously, they have influence over people and we see all the time how people can incite violence through the internet.” The FBI and Pinecrest Police have not yet responded to Decrypt’s requests for comment.

According to a court filing Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in the Miami division of the Southern District of Florida, Armstrong has left voicemails with The Moskowitz Law Firm that are “full of vulgarities,” including one where Armstrong states, “We’re going to have First Amendment protesters around your house 24/7 day and night.” The filing also states that Armstrong left another message claiming that the “home addresses” of Moskowitz and his colleagues are “being circulated on Reddit.”

Blockworks

‘BitBoy’ Ben Armstrong Faces Legal Action From FTX Class Action Lawyers

Ben ‘BitBoy’ Armstrong is alleged to have used emails, phone calls and social media to send ‘daily violent threats’ to an attorney in the FTX class action lawsuit.

Courts formally served Ben ‘BitBoy’ Armstrong on April 5, due to his alleged harassment of attorneys involved in the FTX class action lawsuit.

n the weeks since the suit was filed back in March, Armstrong has allegedly been in contact with the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, Adam Moskowitz, through emails, social media and phone calls.

The attorneys originally filed a complaint against Armstrong in March, alleging that he had “left voicemails” that targeted the counsel, including one to Moskowitz claiming, “We’re going to have First Amendment protesters around your house 24/7 day and night.”

According to the most recent filing, the lawyers were unable to serve Armstrong until April 5. Lawyers involved with the case requested a hearing with the court to address the “serious matters of Armstrong’s conduct to date.”

In the filing, the lawyers wrote, “plaintiffs respectfully suggest that any Court cannot condone or allow such inappropriate, bullying, unprofessional and, frankly, terrorizing conduct, specifically in a time where social media reaches millions of people and which involves direct threats on officers of the court and their families.”

Armstrong had previously tweeted about Moskowitz, calling him “a walking piece of human garbage.”

The lawyers are also requesting a hearing in another class action lawsuit that has named Armstrong as a defendant. The second lawsuit alleged that Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao and social media influencers – including Armstrong – promoted, “assisted in and/or actively participated in Binance’s offer and sale of unregistered securities.”

Law360

Binance Hit With Investor Suit Following CFTC Action

Binance, its CEO Changpeng Zhao and several others have been hit with a proposed class action in Florida federal court by investors who claim the world's largest crypto exchange platform turned a blind eye to potential money laundering and terrorist financing on its platform.

The suit, filed on Friday, came just days after the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed its own suit against the platform with similar allegations.

Adam Moskowitz of The Moskowitz Law Firm PLLC, counsel for the investors, told Law360 on Monday that the suit is an important chapter in his team's strategy to secure relief for millions of cryptocurrency customers around the world.

Coinpaper

Crypto influencers hit with a $1 billion lawsuit. Is there a global crackdown on crypto taking shape?

On Friday evening, The Moskowitz Law Firm and Boies Schiller Flexner filed a class action lawsuit targeting Binance's companies, including its US branch and three main international entities, the company's founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ), and three crypto influencers: Jimmy Butler, a Miami Heat star, Ben Armstrong, a content creator going by the nickname BitBoy Crypto, and Graham Stephan, a YouTuber boasting nearly 4.3 million subscribers.

The action is founded on the assertion that the assets traded on the exchange are in fact unregistered securities, which were being promoted illegally by the Binance-paid influencers. "This is a classic example of a centralized exchange, which is promoting the sale of an unregistered security," Adam Moskowitz, founding and managing partner of The Moskowitz Law Firm (MLF), said in an interview with Fortune.

MLF is hardly a newcomer to the "crypto-as-a-security" issue. Last year, the company brought a class action against Voyager Digital for allegedly helping lure customers and contributing to investors losses of $5 billion. It also coordinated two actions against FTX before federal and state courts, targeting the failed company's brand ambassadors, including such celebrities as Shaquille O'Neal, Larry David, Steph Curry, and Tom Brady.

"The statute clearly states that if an influencer is promoting an unregistered security, and has a financial interest in doing so, the influencer may be liable to everyone who bought the assets. The exchange that facilitates the trades would be liable as well," Moskowitz explains.

Coinspeaker

Binance Chief, Jimmy Butler, And Other Influencers Face $1B Lawsuit For Promoting Unregistered Securities

The lawsuit blames crypto exchange Binance and its affiliates for illegally promoting unregistered securities and also engaging in the activities of BNB burn.

Crypto exchange Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) is facing another set of difficulties in a high-profile legal challenge. Just a few days after the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit against Binance, The Moskowitz Law Firm, and Boies Schiller Flexner have also fined another class action lawsuit targeting the Binance chief along with other influencers such as NBA star Jimmy Butler, for promoting unregistered securities.

These two law firms have filed a $1 billion lawsuit in the Southern District of Florida. The lawsuit claims Binance’s involvement in the trading of unregistered securities as well as paying influencers for unlawful promotions. “This is a classic example of a centralized exchange, which is promoting the sale of an unregistered security,” the lawsuit notes.

Adam Moskowitz, the managing partner of The Moskowitz Law Firm, discussed the details with the Fortune publication. the two law firms – The Moskowitz Law Firm and Boies Schiller Flexner – had previously teamed up to bring a class action lawsuit against Voyager Digital. Back then, the law firm had stated that influencers promoting “unregistered securities” will be liable for customers’ losses.

On similar claims, Binance and influencers including NBA Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler, and YouTubers like Ben Armstrong (BitBoy Crypto) and Graham Stephen face the charges of paying $1 billion in damages caused to customers. Moskowitz said: “We’ve been investigating these same unregistered security issues against Binance for over a year”.

As per the lawsuit filed by three American investors, “millions” of people could be eligible for the damages. the law firms are planning to rope in more Binance influencers to the suit in future filings. The plaintiffs are two Florida residents and a person from California.

As Moskowitz told Fortune:

“The statute clearly states that if an influencer is promoting an unregistered security, and has a financial interest in doing so, the influencer may be liable to everyone who bought the assets. The exchange that facilitates the trades would be liable as well.”

Interestingly, the complaint notes both – Binance’s native token BNB as well as its Affiliate program. The lawsuit makes the case that the Binance chief CZ burns or eliminates the BNB. Thus, it reduces supply in an effort to boost its prizes, an action that brands BNB as a security.

The lawsuit also gives details on Binance affiliates received the rebates on the trades for investors they recruit and “click through their link” to buy and sell coins on the Binance platform. Thus, it also names Stephen and Armstrong for illegally promoting unregistered securities.

“If we win on the unregistered securities issue, there will be no question that Binance and the influencers are liable,” Moskowitz told Fortune. “It’s ironic that FTX was going to be the savior of Voyager until their fraud was uncovered, and now Binance is supposed to be the next savior. Given the cases in bankruptcy, this may be the last chance for the victims to seek any recovery from their losses from crypto fraud.”

Daily Business Review

Influencers, NBA Star, and Crypto Giant Binance Sued for Unregistered Securities Sale

Attorneys in Florida and New York have hit influencers, a basketball star and Binance, the largest centralized, web-based crypto-products platform, with a class action lawsuit in Miami federal court over the promotion, participation and sale of unregistered securities.

“This is a classic case of a registered exchange, which is promoting the sale of an unregistered security,” the three plaintiffs, Michael Sizemore in California, and Rudy Vazquez and Mikey Vongdara in Florida, alleged in the 74-page class action lawsuit.

The plaintiffs are represented by The Moskowitz Law Firm partners Adam Moskowitz and Joseph Kaye in Coral Gables, as well as Boies Schiller Flexner partners Brooke Alexander in New York and Stephen Zack and Tyler Ulrich in Miami.

“Don’t think that the new, common defense tactic of filing for bankruptcy, such as 3M and Johnson & Johnson, is the end of the road in seeking relief for victims,” Moskowitz said. “Most firms avoided these cases after Voyager and FTX declared bankruptcy, but we did not, and will go after all liable. This is especially where there may be no money for victims, after hundreds of millions are paid in these bankruptcies.”

And the plaintiffs sued the defendants, Binance, its founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao, its subsidiaries based in the Cayman Islands and Ireland, and its Delaware digital asset trading operator, BAM Trading Services Inc. Additional defendants include the Miami Heat basketball player Jimmy Butler, and YouTube influencers Gram Stephan and Ben Armstrong.

Insider

Binance and NBA star Jimmy Butler slapped with fresh class action lawsuit for touting crypto

Binance and influencers associated with the cryptocurrency exchange have been named in a fresh class action lawsuit for unlawfully touting crypto, a week after regulators sued Binance for dodging trading rules.

The crypto exchange and several of its partners are now facing a $1 billion class action suit filed by The Moskowitz Law Firm and Bois Schiller Flexner on Friday, Fortune reported. The firms, which have previously partnered to deliver two class action suits against troubled crypto exchanges, are alleging that Binance was trading cryptocurrencies as unregistered securities, and influencers paid by the exchange were unlawfully touting the tokens on social media.

The complaint names four influencers in particular who touted coins traded by Binance, including content creators Ben Armstrong and Graham Stephan, Miami Heat player Jimmy Butler, and Binance's CEO, Changpeng Zhao. The Moskowitz Law told Fortune it would continue to add other Binance influencers to the class action suit.

The case was brought by three plaintiffs who all claimed to lose money from crypto that was promoted by Binance and its influencers, but the number of people affected by the crypto exchange's actions could be "in the millions," the complaint said.

"We've been investigating these same unregistered security issues against Binance for over year, The Moskowitz Law's founder, Adam Moskowitz, told Fortune in a report published Saturday.

News of the suit comes a week after Binance was hit with a 74-page complaint from the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, which claims the crypto exchange attempted to evade financial regulation and trading rules using methods that included encouraging US customers to use VPNs and writing up fake anti-money laundering reports.

The case also mirrors previous lawsuits The Moskowitz Law and Bois Schiller have brought over the past year, including a class action suit against crypto exchange Voyager, and two class action suits against FTX. The lawsuits have called out prominent crypto bulls, like Mark Cuban, Shaquille O'Neal, Steph Curry, and Tom Brady for touting various exchanges and digital tokens during the market's most recent bull run of 2020-2021.

Yahoo! Finance

A $1 Billion Lawsuit Is Making Matters Worse For Binance

Binance’s pile of legal woes keeps on growing.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, its executives, and a handful of influencers who promoted the platform are all being sued for a whopping $1 billion, according to a Mar. 31 lawsuit filed by lawyers from Boies Schiller Flexner and The Moskowitz Law Firm. Three plaintiffs—two Floridians and one Californian—claim they lost money while trading digital assets promoted by Binance and the influencers.

Binance, its founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao (aka “CZ”), and three influencers—NBA Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler, and YouTubers Graham Stephan and Ben Armstrong (BitBoy Crypto)—are being sued for trading in and unlawfully promoting unregistered securities.

One of the law firms behind the Binance lawsuit is the same one that’s responsible for bringing the first class action suit in the country against cryptocurrency platform Voyager Digital. Last May, The Moskowitz Law Firm, based in Coral Gables, Florida, went after Voyager for, among other things, selling unregistered securities in the form of crypto tokens and interest-bearing cryptocurrency accounts.

“It’s ironic that FTX was going to be the savior of Voyager until their fraud was uncovered, and now Binance is supposed to be the next savior. If we win on the unregistered securities issue, there will be no question that Binance and the influencers are liable,” said Adam Moskowitz of The Moskowitz Law Firm.

Quartz

A $1 billion lawsuit is making matters worse for Binance

Binance’s pile of legal woes keeps on growing.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, its executives, and a handful of influencers who promoted the platform are all being sued for a whopping $1 billion, according to a Mar. 31 lawsuit filed by lawyers from Boies Schiller Flexner and The Moskowitz Law Firm. Three plaintiffs—two Floridians and one Californian—claim they lost money while trading digital assets promoted by Binance and the influencers.

Binance, its founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao (aka “CZ”), and three influencers—NBA Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler, and YouTubers Graham Stephan and Ben Armstrong (BitBoy Crypto)—are being sued for trading in and unlawfully promoting unregistered securities.

One of the law firms behind the Binance lawsuit is the same one that’s responsible for bringing the first class action suit in the country against cryptocurrency platform Voyager Digital. Last May, The Moskowitz Law Firm, based in Coral Gables, Florida, went after Voyager for, among other things, selling unregistered securities in the form of crypto tokens and interest-bearing cryptocurrency accounts.

“It’s ironic that FTX was going to be the savior of Voyager until their fraud was uncovered, and now Binance is supposed to be the next savior. If we win on the unregistered securities issue, there will be no question that Binance and the influencers are liable,” said Adam Moskowitz of Moskowitz Law Firm.

Fortune

Binance, NBA Star Jimmy Butler, And Crypto Influencers Hit With $1 Billion Suit For Promoting Unregistered Securities

The Moskowitz Law Firm and Boies Schiller Flexner, home to super-attorney David Boies, filed a class action suit that targets Binance, its founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ)—the world’s leading spokesman for the crypto industry—and hoops star Jimmy Butler of the Miami Heat.

Adam Moskowitz, Founding and Managing Partner of The Moskowitz Law Firm, discussed the suit with Fortune shortly after the filing, made in the Southern District of Florida.

The law firms previously teamed up to bring a class action against Voyager , which subsequently went bankrupt, and two suits tied to the failure of FTX. The first of the latter targeted celebrities who served as the exchange’s highly-paid brand ambassadors, a roster that included comedian Larry David, basketballers Shaquille O’Neal and Steph Curry, and football legend Tom Brady. In mid-March, Moskowitz Law and Boies Schiller sued eight compensated “influencers” for promoting FTT, FTX’s native coin. That suit alleges that the influencers are liable for customer losses on the collapsed coin because it qualified as an “unregistered security.”

The new action against Binance rests on the same basic assertion: that the exchange was trading cryptocurrencies that are in reality unregistered securities, and that social media influencers paid by Binance promoted these instruments unlawfully. “This is a classic example of a centralized exchange, which is promoting the sale of an unregistered security,” charges the complaint. The suit seeks damages in excess of $1 billion, in total, from the Binance companies and the influencers. “We’ve been investigating these same unregistered security issues against Binance for over a year,” notes Moskowitz.

“If we win on the unregistered securities issue, there will be no question that Binance and the influencers are liable,” Moskowitz told Fortune . “It’s ironic that FTX was going to be the

savior of Voyager until their fraud was uncovered, and now Binance is supposed to be the next savior. Given the cases in bankruptcy, this may be the last chance for the victims to seek any recovery from their losses from crypto fraud.”

Investing.com

Crypto Influencer vs. FTX Lawsuit: The Twitter Feud Heats Up

BitBoy Crypto, a prominent crypto influencer, continues his Twitter outrage towards the FTX lawsuit. Specifically, BitBoy Crypto aims most of his contempt for Adam Moskowitz, the lawyer handling the FTX lawsuit.

On March 15, a class action lawsuit was filed claiming $1 billion in damages against YouTube Influences who promoted FTX.

Daily Business Review

'You and Your Family Shot': Lawyer Allegedly Threatened Over Accused FTX Crypto Influencer

A cryptocurrency influencer, who is among defendants sued last week for $1 billion in fortunes lost via FTX, is the subject of a status conference for alleged threats and harassment on a Florida attorney.

Lead counsel Adam Moskowitz, the managing partner of The Moskowitz Law Firm in Coral Gables, alleged crypto influences, allegedly like defendant Ben Armstrong, take the position that they are “immune from accountability” for statements made online to their followers.

“Anyone with a computer that’s just hiding in their parent’s basement, that has millions of followers, could be very dangerous,” Moskowitz said. “This guy was sending out my office address, he said he was going to call me during his show, and he was going to track down my family. These are the people that specific companies set up to fuel profits.”

Moskowitz is joined by lawyers David Boies and Stephen Zack of Boies Schiller Flexner, as well as additional attorneys, including his law firm partner Joey Kaye.

Fox Business

Crypto Influencer Allegedly Threatened Attorney Behind FTX Class Action Suit

A cryptocurrency influencer who is a defendant in a class action lawsuit targeting promoters of failed crypto exchange FTX is facing new legal scrutiny after allegedly sending threatening messages to the attorneys leading the lawsuit.

Ben Armstrong – known as "BitBoy Crypto" – is one of several influencers who have been named defendants in a class action lawsuit over their promotion of FTX accounts to their YouTube and social media followers. For example, Armstrong’s BitBoy Crypto channel on YouTube has 1.45 million subscribers. Plaintiffs allege the influencers didn’t disclose that they were paid to endorse or sponsor FTX or conduct adequate due diligence.

The lawyers leading the class action suit said in documents filed with the court on Monday that after the lawsuit was filed last week, Armstrong has been harassing one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys with "endless phone calls, Tweets and emails to him privately, and publicly by posting insulting and threatening posts" on social media and that his "behavior has been quickly escalating."

Armstrong allegedly made 21 calls to the attorney’s office within a 45-minute period from an anonymous number and left a voicemail warning Adam Moskowitz, one of the attorneys leading the class action lawsuit, that "we’re going to have First Amendment protesters around your house 24/7 day and night."

In a separate voicemail, he claimed that the "home addresses" of the "lawyers" are "being circulated on Reddit."

According to the filing, Armstrong also sent profanity-laced emails to Moskowitz in addition to a message warning the attorney he was "choosing war with an anonymous community while you yourself are not."

The message continued, "Only a couple bitcoins get you and your family shot. Please be careful. These people are dangerous and you have provoked them" – which prompted Moskowitz to report Armstrong’s behavior to the judge overseeing the class action lawsuit.

The Moskowitz Law Firm is involved with a separate class action lawsuit involving FTX promoters, including Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen, Shaquille O'Neal, Steph Curry, and other sports stars and celebrities.

Yahoo Finance

BitBoy Crypto Accused of Threatening and Harassing Lawyer

Ben Armstrong — better known as the YouTuber BitBoy Crypto — has been accused of threatening and harassing a lawyer involved in a proposed class action lawsuit.

He's among a group of influencers who are being sued amid allegations that they misled investors by promoting FTX's products without revealing that they had been compensated.

But in recent videos, Armstrong has claimed this is defamatory — and said that he had never had any dealings with Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto empire.

A judge has now been told that BitBoy Crypto made "endless phone calls, tweets and emails" to Adam Moskowitz, who is representing one of the plaintiffs in this case.

The filing also alleges that BitBoy Crypto suggested that Moskowitz's home address is now being circulated on Reddit.

Law360

Influencer To FTX Investors' Atty: 'You Made A Big Mistake'

Counsel for a proposed class of investors in collapsed cryptocurrency platform FTX told a Florida federal judge on Monday that one of the suit's named defendants has been threatening and harassing one of the plaintiffs' attorneys through vulgar calls, emails, tweets and other social media posts, allegedly saying things like, "Expect a counter suit bitch."

The proposed class' attorneys on Monday filed a request for a status conference claiming that shortly after the complaint was filed on March 15 against a content creator agency, its founder and numerous YouTube influencers, named defendant Ben Armstrong began harassing plaintiffs' counsel Adam Moskowitz of The Moskowitz Law Firm PLLC with "endless phone calls, Tweets and emails to him privately, and publicly by posting insulting and threatening posts on Twitter, Youtube, and other social media."

The class action against Armstrong, known to his followers as "BitBoy Crypto," and others alleges the defendants misled investors by sharing financial advice and actively promoting FTX investment products without disclosing any compensation deals with the platform. The investors claim they were then damaged when the unregistered securities lost their value after the platform went bankrupt late last year.

The Street

Social Media Influencers Targeted in New FTX Lawsuit

American and non-American plaintiffs are suing the creators for marketing FTX without the requisite disclosures. The case is being brought by Adam Moskowitz, who is also pursuing a different lawsuit against Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen, Larry David and other A-list stars for promoting FTX.

BuzzFeed

Popular Finance YouTubers Who Hyped Crypto Company FTX Are Being Sued

The lead plaintiff in the case is Edwin Garrison, an Oklahoma resident who is also leading a separate class action against celebrities including Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen for their roles in advertising FTX. Garrison’s lawyer, Joseph Kaye of The Moskowitz Law Firm, previously told BuzzFeed News that his client was trying to save money for his granddaughter and lost his entire investment. 

In the case against the YouTubers, Garrison was joined by FTX investors from around the world, including the UK and Australia. Adam Moskowitz, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, told BuzzFeed News, “Influencers are paid, just like all other promoters, and thus must be held accountable. They are paid so much because they play an important role today with social media, in making financial decisions.”

Coinspeaker

Social Media and YouTube Influencers Accused of Promoting FTX without Proper Disclosure

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which is seeking class-action status, are being represented by Adam Moskowitz of The Moskowitz Law Firm. Moskowitz is also involved in another FTX-related lawsuit, this one with celebrities such as Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen being sued for ‘actively participating’ in the “offer and sale of unregistered securities in the form of yield-bearing accounts.”

The seven plaintiffs named in the lawsuit are both from within the U.S. and outside. They claim to have suffered damages after purchasing “an unregistered security from FTX in the form of a YBA [yield-bearing account]” which the defendants promoted for the financial benefit of themselves and/or FTX. The lawsuit identified classes of plaintiffs from around the world which make up “thousands, if not millions, of consumers globally, to whom FTX offered and/or sold YBAs.” It is demanding that “a sum exceeding $1,000,000,000.00” be paid to the plaintiffs as damages.

Blockhead

Crypto Currents: Arbitrum Airdrop, Euler Hacker Feels Bad, and Crypto YouTubers Face Lawsuit

Adam Moskowitz of The Moskowitz Law Firm, who is also involved in a similar crypto lawsuit against celebrities including Tom Brady, is representing the YouTube plaintiffs.

“Though FTX paid defendants handsomely to push its brand and encourage their followers to invest,” the lawsuit states. “Defendants did not disclose the nature and scope of their sponsorships and/or endorsement deals, payments, and compensation. This action may be one of the only avenues for any of the victims to recover any of their damages.”

Crypto News

New Lawsuit Accuses Social Media, YouTube Influencers of Hyping FTX Without Proper Disclosure

Representing the plaintiffs is Adam Moskowitz of The Moskowitz Law Firm, who was also involved in a separate FTX-related lawsuit blaming Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen and other celebrities for promoting FTX.

Investing.com

Lawsuit Filed Against Crypto Influencers For Endorsing Now-Defunct FTX

The lawsuit’s focal point is the influencers’ advocacy for the platform’s exchange. Moreover, it alleges that without revealing the nature of any payment or compensation, while endorsing the product. Among the people who have been sued since then include Erika Kullberg, BitBoy Ben Armstrong, and “Meet Kevin” Kevin Paffrath.

Adam Moskowitz, of The Moskowitz Law Firm, is defending the plaintiffs. On the other hand, Moskowitz is apparently also engaged in a similar action against Tom Brady and other celebrities. These famous people actively pushed the now-defunct crypto exchange.

The FTX collapse caused immense damage to the entire industry. As a result, many firms declared bankruptcy and even brought more stringent wrath from SEC.

Binance

Breaking: FTX Crypto Influencers Sued for $1 Billion in Landmark Class-action Suit

In a new class action lawsuit, YouTubers who endorsed FTX before its collapse in November of last year are being sued for $1 billion.

Yahoo Finance

Class Action Seeks $1B From Influencers Who Endorsed FTX

The attorneys suing the FTX endorsers, David Boies and Adam Moskowitz, have also filed a class-action lawsuit against celebrity FTX endorsers including Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, Steph Curry and Larry David. As has the Texas State Securities Board.

A number of celebrities have been caught out by the earnings disclosure requirement, most notably Kim Kardashian and ex-NBA star Paul Pierce, who earlier this year settled lawsuits by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over their endorsement of the Ethereum Max token. They paid $1.26 million and $1.4 million, respectively.

They and boxing great Floyd Mayweather are also targets of a class action lawsuit over the EMAX endorsements.

The lawsuit argues that "crypto firms like FTX turned to celebrity and social media endorsers to position itself as the 'safe' option among cryptocurrency exchanges… [despite being] a house of cards that misappropriated customer assets."

BeInCrypto

Investors Sue Crypto Influencer BitBoy For Promoting FTX

Adam Moskowitz will represent U.S. and non-U.S. plaintiffs in a class-action suit against Armstrong, Erika Kullbergm, and Kevin Paffrath.

Law360

FTX Investors Say Influencers Are To Blame For Bad Deal

Investors in collapsed cryptocurrency platform FTX filed a $1 billion proposed class action against a content creator agency, its founder and numerous YouTube influencers alleging they were misled into purchasing unregistered securities that lost their value after the platform went bankrupt.

In the lawsuit filed Wednesday in Florida federal court, Edwin Garrison and six other investors say the eight influencers, Creators Agency LLC and its founder, Erika Kullberg, shared financial advice and "actively promoted" FTX investment products, but failed to disclose any compensation deals with the platform.

"Evidence has now been uncovered that reveals influencers played a major role in the FTX disaster and, in fact, FTX could not have arisen to such great heights without the massive impact of these influencers, who hyped the deceptive FTX platform for undisclosed payments ranging from tens of thousands of dollars to multimillion-dollar bribes," the complaint said.

Yahoo Finance

YouTube Influencers Slapped With $1 Billion Lawsuit for Promoting FTX

A group of investors who did business with defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX brought a class action lawsuit against multiple internet influencers Wednesday, alleging the content creators pushed unregistered securities on their viewers and followers while promoting the collapsed exchange.

The lawsuit seeks over $1 billion in damages and was brought against content creators that reached millions online, including BitBoy Crypto creator Ben Armstrong and finance YouTube creator Graham Stephan, among seven other individuals and the talent management firm Creators Agency.

Following the collapse of FTX, several of the lawsuit’s defendants “scrubbed their YouTube channels of all video clips endorsing FTX and praising Sam Bankman-Fried” and replaced them with apology videos, the lawsuit claims.

The class action lawsuit is a consolidation of others brought against FTX founder and former CEO Sam-Bankman Fried, several FTX insiders, and celebrity brand ambassadors, which include retired National Football League Quarterback Tom Brady, supermodel Gisele Bündchen, and comedian Larry David.

Cryptopolitan

FTX Crypto Influencers On YouTube Sued For $1b In Landmark Class-action Suit

In a new class action lawsuit, YouTubers who endorsed FTX before its collapse in November of last year are being sued for $1 billion. This latest legal action is part of the larger controversy surrounding the crypto exchange platform, which has led to many lawsuits against those involved. The suit alleges that these YouTubers were responsible for promoting the failed exchange and are liable for damages. However, this follows similar legal action against celebrities who endorsed FTX before its bankruptcy.

The lawsuit revolves around influencers promoting the exchange without disclosing if they had received any payment or compensation. Those sued include Erika Kullberg, BitBoy Ben Armstrong, and Kevin Paffrath of “Meet Kevin.” Representing the plaintiffs is Adam Moskowitz of The Moskowitz Law Firm, who is also involved in a similar case against celebrities such as Tom Brady, who had heavily advertised the now-defunct exchange.

The complaint filed against FTX states that the company paid defendants to promote their brand and encourage their followers to invest without disclosing the magnitude of these sponsorships and endorsement deals, payments, or compensation. As a result, it is believed that this legal action may be one of the only ways for victims to recoup any losses.

TechCrunch

Finance YouTubers Sued Over Promotion of FTX

A new class action lawsuit alleges that several well-known finance YouTubers, including Graham Stephan, Andrei Jikh, Jaspreet Singh and others, should be held responsible for promoting now-disgraced cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

The lawsuit’s plaintiff is Edwin Garrison, a private investor who also filed a lawsuit against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, plus celebrity promoters like Tom Brady, Stephen Curry, Shaquille O’Neal, Larry David, Kevin O’Leary and others. Bankman-Fried is also facing numerous criminal fraud charges from multiple U.S. government bodies, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

According to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines for social media influencers, creators must clearly disclose when they are being paid to promote a product. Kim Kardashian, for example, settled with the FTC for $1.26 million last year for not properly disclosing that she was paid $250,000 to promote EthereumMax’s EMAX token.

The lawsuit also alleges that the YouTubers took part in a civil conspiracy with FTX and misled customers “with the false impression that any cryptocurrency assets held on the FTX Platform were safe and were not being invested in unregistered securities.”

SEC chair Gary Gensler has asserted that existing securities laws apply to cryptocurrencies, while many in the crypto industry have argued otherwise. This lack of clarity makes it more challenging for crypto companies and influencers alike to know when to abide by more intense standards for the advertisement of securities.

“Ms. Kardashian’s case also serves as a reminder to celebrities and others that the law requires them to disclose to the public when and how much they are paid to promote investing in securities,” Gensler said when Kardashian settled with the SEC.

If FTX accounts are considered securities, then these YouTubers could be held liable for not sharing exactly how much FTX paid them.

MarketWatch

Network of YouTube Financial Influencers Hit with Class Action Suit for Pumping Up FTX

A prominent group of YouTube financial influencers have become the targets of a class action lawsuit accusing them of leading their viewers into financial ruin by uncritically promoting failed crypto exchange FTX in return for lucrative sponsorship deals.

The suit, filed on Wednesday in federal court in Miami, argues that the network of influencers played a key role in drawing customers into using FTX by convincing them it was a genuinely safe platform in a sea of fraudulent operators and crypto scams.

“FTX turned to celebrity and social media endorsers to position itself as the ‘safe’ option among cryptocurrency exchanges,” the suit read. “FTX’s paid endorser program was clearly designed to use the positive reputation associated with specific YouTube and other social network influencers to convince consumers that FTX was a safe place to buy and sell cryptocurrency.” 

The suit names well-known YouTube influencers Kevin Paffrath, Graham Stephan, Andrei Jikh, Jaspreet Singh, Brian Jung, Jeremy Lefebvre, Tom Nash, Ben Armstrong and Erika Kullberg as defendants. It also includes the Creators Agency, a talent management firm and digital ad network run by Kullberg and her husband, that helped put together the group’s lucrative sponsorship deals with FTX.

The class-action suit was brought in the name of Edwin Garrison, an FTX customer from Oklahoma, by The Moskowitz Law Firm in Florida and Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, the New York-based law firm headed by famed litigator David Boies. 

The same firms have filed a similar class action lawsuit on behalf of Garrison against FTX’s paid celebrity endorsers, like former NFL quarterback Tom Brady, supermodel Gisele Bundchen, comedian Larry David and NBA star Stephen Curry. They have also filed class action suits against FTX itself and its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.

The Block

New Lawsuit Accuses Social Media, YouTube Influencers of Hyping FTX Without Proper Disclosure

A lawsuit filed Wednesday named a group of social media influencers and claimed they "actively promoted FTX" to their millions of followers" without disclosing the nature of any payments or compensation.

Among the influencers are Erika Kullberg, Ben Armstrong — also known as BitBoy in crypto circles — and Kevin Paffrath,  or "Meet Kevin" on YouTube.

The lawsuit alleges that some of the creators, namely Paffrath as well as Graham Stephan and Tom Nash, "have now scrubbed their YouTube channels of all video clips endorsing FTX and praising Sam Bankman-Fried."

Representing the plaintiffs is Adam Moskowitz of The Moskowitz Law Firm, who was also involved in a separate FTX-related lawsuit blaming Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen and other celebrities for promoting FTX.

"Though FTX paid Defendants handsomely to push its brand and encourage their followers to invest, Defendants did not disclose the nature and scope of their sponsorships and/or endorsement deals, payments and compensation," the lawsuit claims. "This action may be one of the only avenues for any of the victims to recover any of their damages."

Law360

Ponzi Scheme Claims Against Atty Paused Amid Dismissal Bid

A  Florida federal judge has paused discovery in a class action from plaintiffs alleging that a lawyer crossed the line from attorney to active participant in a $40 million Ponzi scheme.

In an order filed Monday, U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola Jr. of the Southern District of Florida halted discovery while the court considers a motion by defendants Andrew C. Porter and Salvatore Prescott Porter & Porter PLLC to dismiss the claims against them. Judge Scola said he believed, after an initial review of the case, that those allegations were likely to fall short.

"Upon a cursory review, the court finds that the attorney defendants' motion appears to be at least meritorious and case dispositive. This is especially true of the attorney defendants' litigation privilege defense," Judge Scola wrote.

Forbes

Shaq May Be Hiding In His House To Avoid FTX Lawsuit

At the height of its prestige, the crypto exchange FTX had no larger celebrity endorsement than that of famed basketballer Shaquille O’Neal, who promoted the company through commercials and events, and is now being sued for his alleged role in persuading customers to invest with FTX.

But the former Los Angeles Lakers star, who once partnered with FTX “to help make crypto more accessible for everyone,” has made himself inaccessible to being served with the FTX lawsuit, attorneys said in emails reviewed by Forbes.

O’Neal was named in a class-action suit filed last November in a Florida federal district court by Oklahoma resident and FTX retail investor Edwin Garrison, who claimed he opened an account with the exchange after “being exposed to” celebrity endorsements. Other defendants include FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, Giselle Bündchen, Tom Brady, Larry David and Stephen Curry.

“We have spent great efforts (4 different service companies) trying to get you all served with our Complaint,” Garrison’s lawyers David Boies and Adam Moskowitz wrote in an email to defendants on Tuesday. “Only one, however, has chosen to evade service, in order to draw out these proceedings, or to otherwise attempt to avoid answering for these allegations.”

That person, according to the lawyers, is O’Neal. Over the past month, the 7-foot-1-inch tall athlete has allegedly hidden inside his home when process servers appeared at his door with court papers. The lawyers also claimed to have contacted O’Neal’s last known litigation counsel to no avail.

Lawyers David Boies and Adam Moskowitz wrote that only one defendant "has chosen to evade service, in order to draw out these proceedings, or to otherwise attempt to avoid answering for these allegations.”

“It is really astonishing the measures he has gone to avoid service of our complaint,” Moskowitz told Forbes in an email. “The irony is that the admitted facts against him are probably the worst against any of the FTX Brand Ambassadors.” The attorney provided several examples of attempts to serve O’Neal at his Texas home.

A spokesperson for O’Neal has not yet replied to a request for comment.

“He admitted that his friend Steph Curry called him, told him he could make millions of dollars, if he just served as a FTX Brand Ambassador and lied in a television commercial, that he was ‘all in’ with FTX, when he admitted that personally, he would not go near cryptocurrency,” Moskowitz claimed to Forbes.

FTX and its executives are being investigated for their role in one of the largest crypto scandals to date. Members of Bankman-Fried’s inner circle at the exchange and sister firm Alameda Research — Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang and Nishad Singh — have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with prosecutors. Executives are accused of misusing FTX customer funds to prop up Alameda’s investments and balance sheet. This month, the company said $8.9 billion in customer funds are still missing.

Law360

Celebrities Say FTX Suit Doesn't Belong In Florida State Court

Six FTX Trading Ltd. customers who sued NFL quarterback Tom Brady, TV personality Kevin O'Leary and baseball star David "Big Papi" Ortiz for acting as "brand ambassadors" for the disgraced currency exchange should not have their case remanded to Florida state court, the celebrities told a federal judge.

The motion to remand from plaintiffs Michael Norris, Brandon Rowan, Michael Livieratos, Shengyun Huang, Vijeth Shetty, and Bo Yang is "duplicative" and groundless and should be denied, the celebrities said in their opposition to the motion, filed Tuesday to U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore.

Four days after the remand motion was filed in Florida federal court, the plaintiffs sought to consolidate the suit with others from California and Florida and proposed that a different federal judge preside over the multidistrict litigation, the opposition filing said.

Law360

Alleged Ponzi Schemer Atty Must Turn Over Emails, Court Told

The plaintiffs behind a class action over a $40 million Ponzi scheme case say a Florida federal court should reject an attorney's motion to stay discovery because the lawyer — who they claim crossed a line from attorney to active participant in the scheme — failed to show the discovery would place an unreasonable burden on him and his firm.

CoinDesk

Attorney Behind Lawsuit Against FTX Weighs In on Celebrity Endorsements

The Moskowitz Law Firm Managing Partner Adam Moskowitz explains why his firm is turning its attention to celebrity promoters of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, saying, "these are no brainer cases." CoinDesk reached out for comment to Sam Bankman-Fried, along with Latham & Watkins, the firm which represents FTX celebrity endorsers, including Tom Brady and Larry David, and did not hear back.

Yahoo Finance

Brewing Battle Over Control of Private FTX Cases

As a battle over control of private litigation from the fallout of crypto exchange FTX is brewing, The Moskowitz Law Firm Managing Partner Adam Moskowitz discusses why his firm, along with Boies Schiller Flexner, filed a petition last week requesting a special panel of judges to move all of the private FTX cases to federal court in Miami. Plus, his take on why celebrities who endorsed FTX should be held liable for allegedly violating Florida law.

Law360

FTX Customers Want Fraud Suits Grouped In Florida

A group of plaintiffs who claim they were defrauded by the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency platform FTX urged the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation on Friday to consolidate all similar cases in Florida federal court.

A number of suits have been filed in the wake of FTX's spectacular collapse late last year — most filed in California and Florida by customers who say they were ripped off by the company and its celebrity "brand ambassadors" — but they should all be consolidated in the Southern District of Florida, according to the petition filed by Edwin Garrison, Gregg Podalsky, Skyler Lindeen, Alexander Chernyavksy, Sunil Kavuri, Gary Gallant, and David Nicol.

The petitioners said they were the first in the country to file a class action following FTX's collapse, alleging that company leaders and those paid to shill for the exchange, including Tom Brady, Shaquille O'Neal and David Ortiz, lied to consumers in a "fraudulent scheme designed to take advantage of unsophisticated investors from across the country."

Reuters

Boies, Co-Counsel Move to Grab Control of All Private FTX Cases

Plaintiffs' lawyers have filed at least 11 class action complaints in federal courts in California and Florida on behalf of allegedly defrauded FTX customers. The suits overlap, but they name a variety of different defendants and espouse several different legal theories.

Despite that variation, lawyers from Boies Schiller Flexner and The Moskowitz Law Firm filed a petition on Friday asking a special panel of federal judges to transfer all of the private FTX cases to federal court in Miami, where name partners David Boies and Adam Moskowitz are litigating claims that FTX’s celebrity “brand ambassadors,” including ex-NFL quarterback Tom Brady and comedian Larry David, violated Florida and U.S. securities laws by promoting FTX yield-bearing accounts. The cases contend that the accounts were unregistered securities.

They also argued that their firms “are uniquely positioned to lead this litigation for all affected FTX customers.”

In a phone interview on Monday, Moskowitz told me that he and the Boies firm are far ahead of other plaintiffs lawyers in developing claims against potential FTX defendants, including defendants not yet named in their brand ambassador cases.

“We’re finding new aiders and abetters and are going to be filing new cases,” he said. “We want to make sure there’s one forum for all customers to seek relief.” Moskowitz, whose firm is based in Florida, said that it makes sense for that forum to be Miami federal court because FTX was headquartered in Miami and Florida securities laws allow investors to bring claims against defendants who allegedly abetted fraud. (I emailed David Boies about the motion, but he said he was at court and couldn't meet my deadline.)

Boston Business Journal

Attorneys Clash Over FTX Fallout Lawsuits Involving Tom Brady, David Ortiz

Plaintiffs in a Florida lawsuit linked to cryptocurrency exchange FTX’s collapse say attorneys for celebrity defendants including Tom Brady and David Ortiz are trying to stall or kill the case by moving it to federal court.

The plaintiffs are FTX investors who allege they were effectively tricked into buying unregistered securities in violation of Florida law. Their attorneys say the legal teams for the former New England Patriots quarterback, former Red Sox slugger, “Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary and others who starred in high-profile ads for FTX are using a “ploy … to delay and/or crush any and all proceedings,” according to a motion filed Monday shared with the Business Journal.

Adam Moskowitz, lead co-counsel for the plaintiffs in multiple cases, said in a statement to the Business Journal Tuesday that attorneys for Brady, O’Leary and Ortiz are trying to “run away from the current deadlines and requirements” by shifting the Florida lawsuit to federal court.

“Such type of judge shopping is typically not permitted,” he added. “These famous and rich celebrities will stop at nothing to prevent and delay justice. We will not allow all of the FTX victims to be further harmed."

The plaintiffs’ attorneys also noted that the state case already consolidated several individual complaints pending before a pair of judges in Florida courts.

Forbes

Tom Brady And Other A-Listers Sued For Fumbling FTX Endorsements

Superstar celebrities like NFL quarterback Tom Brady and comedian Larry David are facing lawsuits for endorsing failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. What can we learn from these cases? Due diligence is important and the now infamous FTX ad was right – “Stephen Curry is not a crypto expert.”

Back in December, in the wake of the FTX crypto exchange collapse, lawyers filed a class action lawsuit against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and a host of celebrities like Brady and David. The complaint argues that the celebrities, in lending their credibility to the failed cryptocurrency exchange, were “responsible for the many billions of dollars in damages they caused.

Unlike Bankman-Fried, who was arrested and charged with multiple counts of wire fraud and money laundering for siphoning off customer funds for risky investments and campaign contributions, at least 11 celebrity endorsers have been wrapped up in the FTX drama without facing jail time. These celebrity endorsers include supermodel Gisele Bündchen, NBA star Stephen Curry, tennis phenom Naomi Osaka, former baseball superstar David “Big Papi” Ortiz, and Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary. They are all implicated for appearing in paid advertising campaigns and endorsing the exchange.

The complaint specifically argues that FTX’s customers, through engaging with the FTX platform, were buying and selling “unregistered securities,” regulated by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). Therefore, Brady and the other celebrity endorsers were required to reveal the details of their financial agreements with FTX. The plaintiffs allege that these celebrities violated Florida securities and consumer-protection laws by failing to provide specific information on their financial arrangement with FTX, in addition to not undergoing requisite due diligence before promoting the company.

Law360

Judge OKs Pause Of Virus Insurance MDL During Appeals

A COVID-19 coverage dispute between Erie Insurance Co. and a group of businesses is on hold after a Pennsylvania federal judge agreed Wednesday to pause the multidistrict litigation until the state Supreme Court weighs in on a separate suit's appeal.

U.S. District Judge Mark R. Hornak granted the proposed stay, which will also be in place until the Third Circuit decides whether to rehear its decision against a group of policyholders.

"We are grateful to the court, and to Erie's counsel, for all the cooperation and coordination, as we all wait to see how the Pennsylvania Supreme Court comes down on this issue," Adam Moskowitz, the businesses' attorney, said.

Law360

Mark Cuban Wants Voyager Investor Suit Moved To Texas

"Shark Tank" personality and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said Tuesday that the investor plaintiffs accusing him of promoting a Ponzi scheme by cryptocurrency brokerage firm Voyager Digital Holdings Inc. have engaged in "transparent forum shopping and gamesmanship" and argued that the suit should be moved from Florida to Texas.

Cuban said the proposed class suit should never have been brought in the Southern District of Florida, where none of the defendants — which include Cuban and the Dallas Mavericks — reside and where none of the critical nonparty witnesses can be compelled to testify.

Adam Moskowitz, who represents the investors, said that Cuban's motion was done "so he could have another chance to attack the hundreds of victims that had the courage to stand up against him."

Law360

Atty Takes $40M Ponzi Scheme Suit To Federal Court

An attorney accused of helping clients pull off a $40 million Ponzi scheme has moved a suit against him from Florida state court to federal court, citing the high dollar amount and multi-state nature of the allegations, which involve people living in Florida, Illinois and Michigan.

Law360

Sullivan & Cromwell Wants 'Harassing' Subpoena Blocked

Sullivan & Cromwell LLP on Friday asked a New York federal court to block an "improper and harassing" subpoena from investors suing Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban over his work with cryptocurrency firm Voyager, telling the court that the firm has never represented Voyager and has no involvement in that case.

The white shoe law firm, which is representing failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, said it was served a subpoena seeking documents and testimony regarding whether certain crypto accounts and tokens offered by Voyager and FTX constituted securities that should've been registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The firm said it has no reason to believe it possesses any information that would be responsive to the subpoena.

Law360

Gisele Bündchen, Tom Brady Tap Latham On FTX Promo Case

Supermodel Gisele Bündchen and her ex-husband, football player Tom Brady, are among the former celebrity promoters of failed crypto firm FTX who are calling in BigLaw firms to defend them against accusations that they bear some responsibility for the billions lost by FTX customers.

Bündchen and Brady, in spite of a recently finalized divorce, are both being represented by Latham & Watkins LLP in the Florida federal court where a series of class actions brought by FTX customers have been consolidated.

Comedian Larry David, who starred in an FTX ad that ran during the Super Bowl, has also chosen Latham to defend him against the lawsuits.

Law360

Crypto Coverage After FTX Fall: D&O Liability

The recent implosion of cryptocurrency firm FTX and its affiliates provides a case study for potential crypto exposure under traditional insurance policies. The FTX debacle is described here as an introduction to a series of three articles on potential liability exposure and coverage, including for D&O and corporate liability insurance; for accountants and lawyers; and crime and custody coverage for crypto assets.

The family of FTX entities was run by Sam Bankman-Fried, an American entrepreneur, investor and former billionaire, and operated in the Bahamas and the U.S.

Daily Business Review

Miami Judge to Weigh Whether Crypto Platform FTX's Investment Product Is a Security

The potential ruling could be bad news for defendant FTX’s former brand ambassadors, such as defendant Tom Brady, who would be liable for promoting an unregistered security. The recent FTX bankruptcy filing was the largest of several failures by cryptocurrency platforms last year.

The Howey Test determines whether a transaction or an investment contract qualifies as a security if it meets three requirements.

Adam M. Moskowitz, the Managing Partner of The Moskowitz Law Firm in Coral Gables, filed a motion for partial summary judgment on this “specific and narrow question” that has plagued worldwide cryptocurrency litigation. The potential ruling could be bad news for defendant FTX’s former brand ambassadors, such as defendant Tom Brady.

“If they are found to be securities, our contention is that these celebrities are strictly liable,” Moskowitz said. “The law provides that you could have secondary liability by marketing an unregistered security and it is your responsibility to check if it is a registered security. The SEC said that in 2016. If these are found to be securities, you’re liable for promoting an unregistered product.”

The First District Court of Appeal applied The Howey Test in Mehl v. Office of Financial Regulation to determine that a pay telephone sale was a lease-backed program marketed and sold to investors. As such, the court interpreted it as an investment contract subject to regulation under the investor protection act.

The First DCA cited the Florida Supreme Court’s decision in E.F. Hutton v. Rousseff. The ruling held that “while the various states’ securities laws operate in conjunction with federal law, federal laws do not supersede state law.”

And that led the appellate court to determine that Florida’s interpretation of its securities laws must take into consideration the legislative purpose of the investor protection act, which was to “protect investors from fraudulent and deceptive practices in the sale and marketing of securities.”

Under The Howey Test, a transaction or an investment contract qualifies as a security if it meets three requirements: First, an investment of money; second, in a common enterprise; and third, with a reasonable expectation of profits to be derived from the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others.

Adam M. Moskowitz, who is joined by his Partner Joseph M. Kaye, as well as David Boies and Stephen Zack of Boise Schiller Flexner, said: “Judge Hanzman’s ruling will have worldwide implications because it may not be binding on every court, but if it is a well-reasoned decision, either way, whether it helps us or hurts us, everyone in the world is going to look to that decision for this question.”

Law360

Ill. Atty Sued Over Alleged $40M Ponzi Involvement

A Chicago lawyer who represented a cryptocurrency trader for EmpiresX was hit with a suit Thursday from investors in the purported hedge fund embroiled in a $40 million crypto scheme, claiming that the attorney convinced his client not to provide key information about where his co-conspirators in the scheme had fled.

Andrew C. Porter, a Partner at Michigan and Illinois-based litigation firm Salvatore Prescott Porter & Porter PLLC, was accused Thursday of telling his client Joshua David Nicholas, who was allegedly the head trader at EmpiresX, to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights instead of cooperating with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's investigation into the whereabouts of the EmpiresX founders Emerson S. Pires and Flavio M. Goncalves, who had allegedly already fled to Brazil and Dubai with their earnings from investors.

According to a certified class of investors in EmpiresX, who have already reached a separate settlement with Nicholas, Porter's client wanted to tell the SEC where Pires and Goncalves were hiding out and also provide the commission with information about the bank accounts storing the money EmpiresX had collected from investors. However, Porter advised Nicholas not to do this.

Los Angeles Times

Have Celebs Learned Their Lesson From The FTX Debacle?

Strolling out of a football stadium, Tom Brady makes his pitch for the crypto trading platform FTX.

“It’s better,” the revered quarterback says as he reviews a skyward-bound investment portfolio on his phone. “And I like better.”

The advertisement, posted to FTX’s Instagram account in September, wasn’t the first time Brady had thrown his formidable weight behind the tech company — but it was likely the last.

A month and a half later, a balance sheet leaked from Alameda Research, a trading firm that FTX’s former chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried co-founded, triggering a meltdown of epic proportions.

The Bahamas-based FTX is now bankrupt, and Bankman-Fried sits in Palo Alto under house arrest as he faces charges of fraud. Some of the wunderkind’s closest confidants have flipped on him; he’s pleaded not guilty.

If the collapse has not totally subsumed Brady, he hasn’t gotten out fully unscathed either. The pro athlete is among several celebrities being sued in a class action lawsuit alleging that they helped to promote the sale of unregistered securities in the form of yield-bearing FTX accounts.

The litigation, filed in Miami, has cast a spotlight on the important role that high-profile athletes, actors and other entertainers played in promoting FTX. Although some legal experts think it will be tough to prove liability, the federal case is forcing a reexamination of how celebrities have engaged with the controversial crypto industry.

“FTX’s paid endorser program was clearly designed to use the positive reputation associated with specific celebrities to convince consumers that FTX was a safe place to buy and sell cryptocurrency,” the suit reads. “Celebrities have a moral and legal obligation to know that what they are promoting is unlikely to cause physical or financial damage to customers.”

Larry David starred in an FTX Super Bowl ad that framed crypto as a world-historical innovation on par with the wheel or the lightbulb.

Shaquille O’Neal asked would-be investors: “I’m all in. Are you?”

Other household names — Steph Curry, David Ortiz, Shohei Ohtani, Naomi Osaka, Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary — promoted the company too. All are listed as defendants.

“It’s a warning to these celebrities,” said Adam Moskowitz, one of the lawyers bringing forward the suit. “If you’re going to take the risks, there’s going to be consequences.”

“They’re really using the celebrity as a pawn to convince unsuspecting consumers to invest,” said Bonnie Patten, executive director of the consumer watchdog group Truth in Advertising.

Moskowitz, the lawyer behind the class action suit, said he’s been pursuing fraud cases related to cryptocurrency for a while now: first with low-level scammers, such as a Kazakhstani teen, and then around more formal crypto platforms over the last two years.

Now the attorney wants to hold accountable the many celebrities he says let Bankman-Fried piggyback on their reputations. Going after celebrity sponsors offers a faster path toward recovering what FTX’s victims are owed, Moskowitz told The Times, than trying to get the money out of the embattled Bankman-Fried and his tattered empire.

“We have people that lost millions of dollars … because they were told for 8% interest this is the safest investment,” said Moskowitz, who claims that some of his clients lost their life savings after being convinced by FTX’s celebrity sponsors that it was a secure place to park their money.

“People respect celebrities,” he added. “Right or wrong, people respect them, and you kind of gain acceptance in society” by recruiting them as sponsors.

Law360

Mark Cuban Blasts Plaintiff Swap In Crypto Suit

"Shark Tank" personality and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has criticized an attempt to switch out named plaintiffs in a proposed class action over his promotional work for cryptocurrency firm Voyager Digital, saying that with one named plaintiff dropping out of the case, there are no longer any Florida-based plaintiffs, and the court therefore no longer has jurisdiction to hear the suit's claims.

The proposed class filed an expedited motion on Jan. 13 asking the court to enter an order allowing them to substitute out plaintiff Sanford Gold for new class representatives Linda Mayrand and Dominik Karnas. According to the motion, Gold can no longer proceed as a class representative in any capacity due to unforeseen medical issues.

The suit accuses Cuban and the Dallas Mavericks of promoting a Ponzi scheme by cryptocurrency brokerage firm Voyager Digital Holdings, which conned investors out of billions.

Sports Illustrated

Gronkowski Issued Subpoena in Cryptocurrency Lawsuit, per Report

Rob Gronkowski has been issued a subpoena for the class-action lawsuit against Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and the franchise for the promotion of cryptocurrency brokerage Voyager Digital, according to court documents obtained by The Athletic.

The NFL veteran is a brand ambassador for the now-bankrupt company. At the time of publication, Gronkowski has not been listed as a defendant in the case. However, the plaintiffs’ attorney, Adam Moskowitz, said in a statement to the outlet, “He is not a named defendant yet, but the court gave us until Feb. 24 to file an amended complaint against Voyager (such as adding defendants, claims and plaintiffs), we know he was a ‘Brand Ambassador’ for Voyager who ‘promoted’ the unsecured securities (the ‘interest accounts’). We served him with a third-party subpoena, and we have named all of the FTX ‘Brand Ambassadors’ in our pending federal class action.”

The FTX proceedings mentioned refer to a separate class-action lawsuit filed against Tom Brady, Stephen Curry, Naomi Osaka, Larry David, Shohei Ohtani and Shaquille O’Neal, to name a few notable figures. That lawsuit claims these individuals, among others, “either controlled, promoted, assisted in, and actively participated” in the alleged scheme where they “aggressively marketed” FTX. The filing describes the company as “truly a house of cards, a Ponzi scheme where the FTX Entities shuffled customer funds between their opaque affiliated entities, using new investor funds obtained through investments in the YBAs and loans to pay interest to the old ones and to attempt to maintain the appearance of liquidity.”

The lawsuit against the Mavs and Cuban follows a similar thread, calling Voyager Digital “unregulated and unsustainable fraud, similar to other Ponzi schemes” that “specifically target[s] young and inexperienced investors,” according to Forbes. 

Law360

Firms Vie To Lead Investor Suit Against Voyager Brass

Law firms have launched bids to represent a proposed class of investors who claim executives and directors of the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency firm Voyager Digital Holdings should be liable for their losses after the company suspended withdrawals and ultimately filed for Chapter 11 on the heels of a downturn in the digital assets market.

Boies Schiller and The Moskowitz Law Firm PLLC represent a group comprising individual investors Anthony Shnayderman, Lisa Provino, Lisa Dagnoli and Katharine Sugrue who seek to serve together as lead plaintiff.

According to the investors, the mid-2022 cryptocurrency market downturn "exposed the fragility of Voyager's investment products and revealed that Voyager did not have enough assets on hand to meet its withdrawal obligations."

Business Insider

Mark Cuban to be Deposed Over His Promotion of Voyager Crypto 'Ponzi Scheme' in Class Action Lawsuit

Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban will be deposed next month in connection to his promotion of Voyager, the crypto lender described as a "Ponzi scheme" in a class action lawsuit.

Voyager investors have claimed that Cuban and Ehrlich roped in naive customers to the platform, as Cuban, an avid cryptocurrency investor, touted the crypto exchange on numerous occasions to his followers. Cuban previously stated that he was a customer of Voyager himself, and claimed it was "as close to risk-free as you're gonna get in the crypto universe."

Cointelegraph.com

Mark Cuban to Face Questioning Under Oath Over Promotion of Voyager

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is set to be deposed next month as part of a defense against a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging that he promoted a Ponzi scheme” in the form of now-bankrupted crypto lender Voyager Digital.

In a rather feisty statement to legal news publication Law360 on Jan. 9, the plaintiffs’ counsel expressed their enthusiasm over the judge “denying Mark Cuban's attempts to stay and delay discovery.”

“We have been litigating on behalf of hundreds of injured Voyager investors for more than a year and will finally be able to uncover evidence of what transpired, and fully understand to what extent Mr. Cuban, and his Dallas Mavericks, were involved in the ‘offering’ of these unregistered securities and to what extent he was to profit,” they said.

The suit also alleges that the firm offered unregistered securities and that Cuban and Voyager CEO Stephen Ehrlich utilized their sophisticated experience to rope uneducated investors to pour their life savings into what they now believe to be a “Ponzi scheme.”

Law360

Mark Cuban To Be Deposed In Crypto 'Ponzi Scheme' Suit

"Shark Tank" personality and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban will be deposed in February in a proposed class action accusing him of promoting an alleged Ponzi scheme by cryptocurrency brokerage Voyager Digital Holdings that investors say conned them out of billions, a Florida federal judge ruled Monday.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette M. Reid stated in her order that Cuban's deposition will be taken in full on Feb. 2 in Dallas, and she denied Cuban's request to bifurcate discovery and have witnesses deposed regarding solely jurisdictional issues.

Law360

Investor Attys Seek $5.5M In Fees As Part Of Ponzi Settlement

Attorneys who represented investors defrauded in a real estate Ponzi scheme asked a Florida federal court for $5.5 million in fees for their work pursuing a lawyer they said helped to implement the scam.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued the investment firm's managers, Brian Davison and Barry Rybicki, in the Florida court in early 2020, accusing them of raising at least $170 million from more than 1,100 people in several states by falsely stating the money would be invested in distressed single-family homes. Instead, court documents show that Davison and Rybicki used millions of investors' dollars for personal use, including charter flights, luxury cars and watches and, in Davison's case, a $2.7 million Manhattan condo.

While EquiAlt told investors that 90% of their funds would be used to buy property, less than half of the money was used for that purpose, according to the SEC complaint.

Miami’s Community News

Generous Donation To Help Pinecrest Police With Active Shooter Training

These days it’s so important for every community to be ready for gun violence and that includes our own backyard. The Pinecrest Police Department is getting some help to plan for one of these worst-case scenarios with stepped-up active shooter training. The Moskowitz Foundation donated $65,000 for police firearms and active shooter firearm simulation training equipment and the accompanying accessories. The Moskowitz Foundation was presented with the 2022 Village of Pinecrest Police Citizen Award, for their dedication and important contributions to the Pinecrest Police.

Attorney Adam Moskowitz said his family has “unwavering support” for our Police and that the Village of Pinecrest is a great place to raise a family, mainly because it is a safe environment and this donation only helps continue the work the police are doing.

Jason Cohen, Chief of the Pinecrest Police Department says, “The Moskowitz Foundation was established by Adam and Jessica Moskowitz, in order to provide a vehicle for their family to fund and support, special and important non-for-profit organizations and charities. Adam established The Moskowitz Law Firm, which is a law firm specializing in Class Action Litigation, whose main goal and purpose is to undertake and fight on behalf of individual class members where they need the strength and support of a class action device to seek any justice. Jessica and Adam, residents of the Village of Pinecrest, believe they have an obligation to ‘give back’ much of those proceeds to their community.”