Through his attorney, Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer this week sent a letter to U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson in which the billionaire owner said he was duped and victimized by Aspiration co-founder Joseph Sanberg, who faces prison sentencing for his fraud conviction on Monday.
The letter highlights how Sanberg, who last year pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud related to a scheme to defraud lenders and investors of more than $248 million between 2020 and 2025, has cooperated in an NBA investigation into the possibility the Clippers circumvented the salary cap by using Aspiration to funnel additional money to star player Kawhi Leonard through a no-show endorsement deal.
As Ballmer sees it, Sanberg agreed to cooperate in exchange for the league submitting a favorable sentencing letter to Judge Wilson, and thus he shouldn’t be regarded as a credible informant.
Ballmer lost $60 million in Aspiration, which has since renamed itself Catona, and that the letter says attracted Ballmer because he “believed in Aspiration’s stated environmental mission” as well as Sanberg’s representations about the company’s financial strength.
“Mr. Ballmer is a clear and undisputed victim of Sanberg’s fraud—one of the single largest of Sanberg’s many victims,” the letter states, adding that Ballmer lost his entire investment in a company that was supposed to “promote sustainability and benefit charitable causes.”
Ballmer’s letter is crafted as a victim impact statement and was written by his attorney, David N. Kelley of O’Melveny & Myers.
Although the letter was sent to a federal judge, Ballmer’s intended audience likely includes NBA commissioner Adam Silver.
The commissioner will decide if the Clippers arranged for Leonard to receive compensation outside of his employment contract. The CBA prohibits side deals with players, such as teams arranging for a player to receive additional money as a scout, business partner, endorser or some other position, with the core principle that the 30 teams need to play by the same set of rules to guarantee fair play and legitimate competition.
Obviously, if one team could sweeten the pot for free agents by saying it would arrange for side deals, therefore being able to spend beyond the salary cap, that team would gain an unfair advantage. At the same time, teams and their athletes signing sponsorship and endorsement deals with the same company occurs in modern sports and is not automatically suspicious.
If Silver concludes the Clippers violated the CBA, he could issue fines, suspend Ballmer and others, or order the forfeiture of Clippers draft picks. Silver could even void Leonard’s contract with the Clippers.
Last year, journalist and podcaster Pablo Torre, of Pablo Torre Finds Out, revealed details concerning a four-year endorsement deal Leonard and Aspiration signed in 2022. Torre said Leonard wasn’t obligated to perform actions for payment and that the endorsement deal would end if Leonard was traded.
Leonard’s deal with Aspiration occurred as Ballmer invested in the company and as the Clippers and Aspiration signed deals that contemplated a $300 million partnership for Aspiration to sponsor the Clippers’ arena and the team’s jersey patch. Aspiration’s finances went sideways, however, as Sanberg was charged with wire fraud and Aspiration filed for bankruptcy.
The Clippers and Ballmer deny wrongdoing occurred and maintain that Ballmer was a victim of Sanberg’s fraud.
Ballmer’s letter makes a point of saying that Sanberg “continues to exploit his fraud” of Ballmer by “providing information to the NBA.”
To that end, the letter contends that Sanberg has shared materials with the NBA in a deal, namely “in return for a sentencing letter that the league submitted on his behalf.”
On April 17, David Anders, a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, whom the NBA retained to investigate the Clippers, wrote a letter to Judge Wilson seen by Sportico. In the letter, Anders said he and other investigators sought Sanberg’s cooperation to further the investigation. Sanberg “voluntarily provided” assistance, Anders writes, and Sanberg’s attorneys “requested that we advise the Court of the nature of Mr. Sanberg’s cooperation.”
Anders adds that Sanberg met with investigators for two in-person interviews and produced documents. In addition, Sanberg’s attorney provided “additional information that was relevant to our investigation.” Sanberg, Anders added, helped the investigators “develop a more complete understanding of key events.”
Anders doesn’t say that investigators necessarily believe everything Sanberg—whose veracity is questionable given that he is an admitted fraudster—said or shared. But he does say Sanberg “provided information that was consistent with our review of contemporaneous documents and other evidence.”
On behalf of Ballmer, Kelley contends that whatever Sanberg said and shared with NBA investigators should be regarded as “suspect,” since he was motivated to seem useful.
Anders’ letter disputes Ballmer’s characterization of a tit-for-tat. A former prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, Anders wrote, “at no time during our dealings with Mr. Sanberg and his counsel did they seek, nor did we make, any promises in exchange for his cooperation.”
Sanberg, 46, could face a long stay in prison. In a sentence recommendation submitted by Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche and other federal prosecutors on April 13, the government pushed for a prison sentence of 212 months (17 years and eight months). Prosecutors say Sanberg “is a serial fraudster who raised hundreds of millions of dollars in an effort to build an empire and a fortune based on lies.”
A sentencing memorandum filed by Sanberg’s attorneys on April 19 adopts a cheerier tone. It contends Sanberg “believed deep in his soul that [Aspiration] could change banking practices that were unfair to ordinary families and harmful to the environment.”
While the memorandum acknowledges Sanberg’s “execution … was bad,” it insists his “intentions were good.” To advance that point, the memorandum underscores how Sanberg “substantially assisted” the NBA’s investigation into the Clippers and did so “voluntarily and with nothing promised in return.”
Sportico reached out to the NBA for comment on Ballmer’s victim impact statement.
In a separate proceeding in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Aspiration investors have sued Ballmer and Catona board members for fraud and related claims. The basic theory of the civil lawsuit is that investors were misled into investing into a fraudulent enterprise. Ballmer asserts he not only did nothing wrong, but he was a victim of the same fraudulent enterprise. His court filings also contend the plaintiffs are overly reliant on Torre’s podcast for alleged evidence.
A major pro sports league writing a letter to a judge about a cooperating witness and informant facing prison isn’t unprecedented. In 1989, MLB commissioner Bart Giamatti wrote a letter to U.S. District Judge Carl Rubin, who was set to sentence Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose’s bookie, Ron Peters, to prison for drug and tax crimes. Giamatti wrote that Peters had been “candid, forthright and truthful” and had “provided critical sworn testimony about Mr. Rose and his associates.”
The move backfired on MLB when Judge Rubin wrote in a pre-sentencing conference that “the baseball commissioner entering into what I think is . . . a vendetta against Pete Rose.”
Rose later sued MLB on the theory that it had prejudged his guilt since Giamatti described Rose’s accuser as “candid, forthright and truthful.” Ultimately Rose, who died in 2024, and MLB negotiated a settlement that led to his lifetime ban, which MLB lifted last year.