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 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.