Lonzo Ball Launches Major Lawsuit over Big Baller Brand Debacle
Los Angeles Lakers guard Lonzo Ball is biting back at the man who allegedly swindled his Big Baller Brand.
Ball filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday against Alan Foster, a part-owner and manager of the Ball family’s sneaker company, ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne reported.
Ball is seeking more than $2 million plus interest in damages from Foster, whom he alleges in the lawsuit “conspired to embezzle millions of dollars and then divert those funds for his personal use, including to acquire assets in Ethiopia,” the report said.
Lakers’ Ball files suit against BBB co-founder Alan Foster https://t.co/Z4dTEtIVQA
— Paula Lavigne (@pinepaula) April 3, 2019
Foster launched the Big Baller Brand with Lonzo’s father, LaVar Ball. Foster owned a 16.3 percent stake in the company before Lonzo, the majority owner with 51 percent ownership, severed ties with him last month.
Foster has a criminal past. He was arrested in 2002 for a financial scheme where he allegedly defrauded 70 investors of $4 million, ESPN reported.
He was released in February 2010, CBS Sports reported.
This was about a year before he met the Ball family.
According to the lawsuit, Foster never told Ball or his family of his criminal past, ESPN reported.
In the lawsuit, obtained by ESPN, Ball alleges that “shortly after his release from prison, Foster embarked on his plan to target Ball and his family.”
He “fleeced them of millions of dollars” by “creating a variety of corporate entities in which he gave himself ownership interests and managerial control,” the report said.
“Foster then used those entities, the suit alleges, to ‘directly and indirectly funnel substantial amounts of Ball family money to himself,'” Shelburne reported.
It appears Alan Foster who is a career scammer saw the Ball family as easy marks and been stealing from them from day 1. Foster threatened to leak fake stories to media if they sued him https://t.co/21idflWamV
— Robert Littal (@BSO) April 3, 2019
The lawsuit alleges that after Ball declared for the NBA draft in 2017, Foster “persuaded Ball that it would be in his best financial interest to form his own company and his own brand of apparel and merchandise rather than aligning himself with established brands that had expressed substantial interest in signing Ball to lucrative endorsement deals,” the suit says, according to ESPN.
Ball cut ties with Foster in March, telling ESPN that Foster “used his access to my business and personal finances to enrich himself. As a result, I have decided to sever all ties with Alan, effective immediately.”
According to ESPN, the suit also alleges that when Ball confronted Foster about his concerns, Foster responded by “threatening to publicly disseminate false and misleading information concerning Ball and his family.”
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