Shaq finally served court documents in FTX lawsuit

Former basketball star and current NBA TV analyst Shaquille O’Neal was served court documents Sunday for a FTX class-action lawsuit in which he is a defendant.

The Moskowitz Law Firm, representing the plaintiffs in the suit filed against disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and celebrities that helped market the defunct cryptocurrency platform, had failed in numerous previous attempts to give the legal notice to Mr. O’Neal.

Whereas other celebrities, such as baseball’s Shohei Ohtani and former NFL superstar Tom Brady, had already received their legal notice of the suit, Mr. O’Neal dodged previous in-person attempts to deliver the documents since the lawsuit was filed in November.

A Monday deadline had been set by Judge Kevin Michael Moore to deliver legal notice to all defendants.

There were at least eight attempts to serve Mr. O’Neal at a Texas residence, 12 attempts at a Georgia residence, as well as attempts made at Mr. O’Neal’s office in the Turner Sports building in Atlanta, where TNT’s “Inside the NBA” is filmed.

Mr. O’Neal tried to avoid being served to the end. On Sunday, at 4:02 local time, process servers at his Texas residence saw him sitting alone in the driver’s seat of a black Ford Expedition sports utility vehicle.

As Mr. O’Neal made his way through a double exit gate, the servers parked their cars on either side of a driveway and exited their vehicles. The legal notice and other documents were displayed in Mr. O’Neal’s direct view, according to an affidavit.

Mr. O’Neal saw the two men and proceeded to speed up and drive around them. The documents in question were tossed in front of the vehicle, landing on the road.

Footage of the incident was captured on Mr. O’Neal’s security cameras.

“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 tweeted Sunday.

Although plaintiff attorneys identify Mr. O’Neal as a spokesman for FTX, he countered that, telling CNBC in December, “A lot of people think I’m involved, but I was just a paid spokesperson for a commercial.”