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A lawsuit has been filed against Shaquille O’Neal over his involvement with NFT project Astrals. - 2
The basketball icon faces allegations of violating securities laws.
Shaquille O’Neal faces a complaint for violating the law regarding offers of Solana-based assets and associated tokens. Managing partner Adam Moskowitz said that the filing represents an important step. The 111-page filing comes after a district judge in Florida appointed the case lead plaintiffs last month who are represented by counsel at the Moskowitz law firm.
He added that people applied and the judge Federico Moreno selected our client to lead the plaintiff. “This is a very big advancement because it highlights that they run the show for all the investors and they have selected us to be class counsel.”
Moskowitz Firm Says O’Neal Involved With Astra
Moskowitz firm is helping lead the charge on many other crypto-related class action lawsuits. They also received the cases of collapsed firms Voyager and FTX. In May, O’Neal and Phenom were served complaints at the same time. O’Neal served because of a focused lawsuit at an NBA game and phenom for a commercial he did for FTX.
Moskowitz claimed that the changed complaint made on Thursday is stronger and shows the clear involvement of O’Neal in the project Astrals which is a Solana based NFT. This also involves the now-deleted videos and tweets, that are gathered through websites like archive.org.
He also claimed that O’Neal was in contact with Astral weekly if not daily. He further stated that what they have included in this changed report shows clearly how O’Neal is personally involved with the project and how his business partner and son were in Astrals. It is much more than what they have expected.
The revised complaint shows that O’Neal is confidentially involved with Solana based NFT Astrals and the project value is associated with the celebrity status of O’ Neal. But after the FTX fall last November, the legend allegedly disappeared from the Astrals community.
The Lawsuit says that he posted a GIF from the film “ The Wolf of Wall Street” with the phrase “I’m not fucking leaving” as his final post in the Astral Discord community.
The complaint said that O’Neal was not seen at Astrals after making the above post.
Astrals is an NFT project made on the Solana blockchain. It has 10, 000 unique 3D avatars. It is a community-driven project and provides play-to-earn role-playing games as per the whitepaper of the project.
The complaint also mentions two partners of Astrals namely Cypher Capital and MH Ventures. They are not listed as defendants Moslowitz said that they will be served as the case progresses. He added that they are not naming them now but when they have opportunities will open the third party subpoenas.
In July the lawyers of O’Neal demanded the lawsuit to be abandoned, saying that digital assets in question were meant for gamers and not investors. According to the court filing in August, the O’Neal motion was denied and the court has given the deadline of September 29 for O’Neal to respond.
Summary
O’Neal was charged for not following the securities law. His personal involvement with Solana based NFT project Astrals is highlighted in the lawsuit.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2023/10/01/lawsuit-against-shaq-oneal-for-playing-active-role-in-solana-nft/