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Shelly Sterling and the NBA have been accused of fraud by Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling in a new lawsuit filed against the proposed sale of the team to former Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer, according to Bloomberg.
The complaint was filed on Wednesday and it says that he is the sole shareholder of LAC Basketball Club Inc., which is the corporation that owns the Clippers. The complaint says that Shelly cannot sell the team to Ballmer without the consent of Donald Sterling. He requested that a judge freeze the sale and asked for unspecified damages in the case.
In the complaint, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Donald said Shelly’s “deliberate collaboration and collusion with the NBA, Commissioner Adam Silver, and Steve Ballmer was extreme and outrageous conduct.”
The lawsuit was filed in the middle of another case in which a probate judge will decide if Shelly can finish the sale to Ballmer. Shelly used doctor reports that found Donald mentally incapacitated.
Dick Parsons testified yesterday in the probate case. Parsons was appointed the interim leader of the Clippers in May following Donald’s racist comments. He said that the $2 billion offered by Ballmer “is a knock-out price” that will not be matched if the league forces a sale of the Clippers.
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Parsons also told the judge that sponsors, coaches and players are planning to abandon the team if Donald remains the owner. This includes head coach Doc Rivers.
“If Doc were to leave that would be a disaster,” Parsons said. “Doc is the father figure.”
Closing arguments in the case are slated for July 28. The judge will then issue a ruling in the case.
Donald was fined $2.5 million and banned for life after recordings of racist comments he made were released by TMZ in April. He told a girlfriend that he did not want her to bring black people to his Clippers games. He also told her he did not want her posting photos of herself with former NBA player Magic Johnson online.
“Donald’s latest lawsuit is a frivolous, last ditch act of desperation by a delusional, bitter man,” Pierce O’Donnell, the lawyer for Shelly, said in an e-mailed statement “This action shows once more how obsessed he is with ruining a record-setting $2 billion sale of the Los Angeles Clippers — a sale that would solve the problems his racist rant started three months ago.”
The new lawsuit filed by Donald claims that he holds sole title to the Clippers even though it was part of a family trust.
