{"id":414407,"date":"2026-01-17T02:31:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T02:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/414407\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T02:31:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T02:31:11","slug":"clippers-owner-steve-ballmer-hammers-aspiration-claims-amid-nba-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/414407\/","title":{"rendered":"Clippers Owner Steve Ballmer Hammers Aspiration Claims Amid NBA Probe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tLos Angeles Clippers<\/a> owner Steve Ballmer<\/a> says the accusation he invested in Aspiration (now called Catona) as part of a scheme to funnel additional money to star player Kawhi Leonard<\/a> through a no-show endorsement deal is \u201csalacious\u201d and \u201cfalse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBallmer\u2019s assertion is contained in a demurrer filed earlier this week by his attorney, Daniel Petrocelli of O\u2019Melveny & Myers. While NBA<\/a> commissioner Adam Silver<\/a> isn\u2019t the stated audience of the filing\u2014Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Tony L. Richardson will rule on the motion\u2014the NBA will certainly consider the brief as it investigates Ballmer and the Clippers for alleged salary cap circumvention.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe motion is in response to Aspiration investors suing Ballmer in the aftermath of company co-founder Joseph Sandberg inducing them to invest their money in what turned out to be a fraudulent enterprise. Last year, Sandberg pleaded guilty to wire fraud and Aspiration filed for bankruptcy.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe investors sued Catona\u2019s board members for fraud and related misdeeds and later added Ballmer, the multibillionaire former Microsoft executive, as a defendant. This is a move Petrocelli, who successfully represented Fred Goldman in the 1997 wrongful death case against O.J. Simpson, says reflected the investors\u2019 \u201csearch of deep pockets to fund a recovery\u201d and their \u201czeal to recover assets swindled by Sandberg from anybody with the means to pay.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOne alleged problem in the lawsuit, Petrocelli insists, is that it relies heavily on assertions made by podcaster and journalist Pablo Torre last September. Torre accused Ballmer of conspiring with Aspiration to circumvent the NBA salary cap, with Aspiration\u2014at one time a Clippers sponsor\u2014signing Leonard (through Leonard\u2019s KL2 Aspire LLC) to a four-year, $28 million endorsement deal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLeonard allegedly didn\u2019t have to perform services to earn the money, with the deal ridiculed as a deceptive instrument. Ballmer and the Clippers deny the allegation.<\/p>\n

\n\tPetrocelli says the complaint against his client tracks \u201calmost verbatim the commentary in Torre\u2019s podcast\u201d without providing additional specifics, insights or context. The complaint is depicted as failing to offer alleged facts that Ballmer \u201cwas even generally aware, much less had the required specific knowledge, that Sandberg was stealing money from victims (including Ballmer himself) by using doctored financial statements, generating phony customers and revenue for Catona\u2019s enterprise sustainability business, or using false and inflated financials.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat approach is problematic, Petrocelli insists, because proving fraud is uniquely challenging. Under California law, fraud must be pled with particularity, meaning there must be specifics and details in the complaint; generalizations, inferences and supposition don\u2019t cut it.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhile conjecture and unsupported assumptions may be appropriate in the world of Torre\u2019s podcast, they have no place in a sworn legal pleading,\u201d Petrocelli wrote.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe alleged lack of specifics is portrayed as especially important in a case where Ballmer was financially harmed by Sandberg. Court records indicate that Aspiration owes the Clippers and KL2 Aspire $30.1 million and $7 million, respectively. Petrocelli highlights that in the criminal prosecution of Sandberg, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice \u201ctreated Ballmer as a prime\u00a0victim\u00a0of Sandberg\u2019s fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTiming is another supposed problem in the theory of liability leveled against Ballmer. As the demurrer tells it, most of the plaintiffs had already invested in Aspiration by the time Ballmer became involved with the company in late 2021. Petrocelli contends the plaintiffs can\u2019t credibly argue they were influenced by Ballmer when their association predated his, and was allegedly based on their reliance on Sandberg\u2019s assurances.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s worth noting that Ballmer\u2019s not committing fraud under California law would not necessarily preclude him from being part of a salary-cap circumvention plot. The two topics are connected, but distinct. Ballmer might not have committed any fraud as to Aspiration investors, but (at least in theory) he still could have been part of an arrangement to pay Leonard extra. To be clear, Ballmer and the Clippers deny that allegation.<\/p>\n

\n\tPetrocelli further suggests it is revealing and suspicious that while both the plaintiffs and Torre describe the Aspiration-Leonard endorsement contract as a sham and vehicle to salary-cap circumvention, neither of them has shown the entire contract.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNotably,\u201d Petrocelli writes, the plaintiffs \u201cattach over 90 pages of exhibits\u201d to their complaint \u201cbut made the tactical decision to exclude the endorsement deal that lies at the heart of their theory.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPetrocelli also blasts Torre for \u201cmaking a salacious\u2014and false\u2014claim\u201d while \u201ctellingly\u201d not revealing the entire contract. Instead, Petrocelli maintains, Torre highlighted \u201conly certain provisions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tPetrocelli contends it \u201cis impossible to tell from those cherry-picked screenshots which terms Torre chose to withhold, and whether there are express terms that undermine the allegations in his podcast and the [complaint].\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Petrocelli is critical of Torre for not sharing the entire endorsement contract, keep in mind that Torre is not an officer of the court. He is a journalist and podcaster reporting a story and using the material most relevant to his goals as a reporter and host. Torre is under no obligation to share additional material, some of which might be irrelevant, duplicative, or disruptive of storytelling. Torre might also have obtained the contract with the explicit understanding that he could only share certain portions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAs to why Ballmer would want the Clippers to become associated with Aspiration, Petrocelli insists it\u2019s because Aspiration claimed to have a commitment to environmental sustainability, and Ballmer \u201cshared\u201d that passion. The match was also allegedly appropriate because the Intuit Dome, where the Clippers play home games, is a \u201cclimate friendly arena.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe investors in\u00a0Donald R. Karr et al. v. Joseph Sandberg et al.\u00a0will have the chance to try to rebut the motion. Judge Richardson will hold a hearing to consider the motion on March 9 in Los Angeles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThere is no required timetable on the NBA\u2019s investigation. As explained by\u00a0Sportico, the league possesses wide discretion in assessing if there was an understanding between the Clippers and Aspiration to evade the cap. The outcome of the controversy could have\u00a0far-reaching legal implications<\/a>\u00a0for the business relationship between teams and sponsors when those sponsors wish to sign teams\u2019 players to endorsement deals<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer says the accusation he invested in Aspiration (now called Catona) as part…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[23867,49,48,143128,14728,1527,459,82,65402],"class_list":["post-414407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-adam-silver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-endorsement-deals","tag-kawhi-leonard","tag-los-angeles-clippers","tag-nba","tag-sports","tag-steve-ballmer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}