'You have very rich people we all love telling us that they checked this out, and it was okay. Why shouldn't they be held responsible?' This lawyer wants celebrity endorsers to pay for assuring investors that FTX was a safe place for their money.
When Michael Livieratos saw quarterback Tom Brady in a commercial for the cryptocurrency trading platform FTX, he knew exactly where he wanted to put his $30,000 crypto investment.
Until its collapse, FTX had been one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges - and one of the most aggressive at marketing digital currencies to the masses. The company had partnerships with NBA teams, patches on Major League Baseball umpire uniforms and the naming rights to the Miami Heat arena. It ran splashy TV ads during NBA and NFL games, including last year's Super Bowl, in which celebrities portrayed FTX as an exciting but safe place to invest money.
In part, Moskowitz's lawsuit reflects the reality that wealthy celebrities are likely to have large amounts of money left - unlike Bankman-Fried, who has said he has $100,000 in the bank and only one working credit card. Celebrities also may be inclined to settle quickly to avoid the bad publicity of a protracted court proceeding.
"It seemed like a lot of investors were getting hurt and no one was really looking out for them," said Moskowitz, who has also brought prominent lawyer David Boies onto his lawsuit. Even if the judge rules FTX interest-bearing accounts were not securities, Moskowitz says, he will argue that celebrities should be liable under a strict Florida consumer protection law, which bans "unconscionable, deceptive, or unfair acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce."
Spokespeople for Brady, Bündchen, Osaka, Curry and O'Leary did not reply to requests for comment. A lawyer for Brady did not provide a comment for this story. In October 2021, Cuban held a news conference with Voyager co-founder Steve Ehrlich announcing a five-year partnership with the Mavericks that would, as Cuban put it, "come up with new ways to introduce Mavs fans to cryptocurrency and help them understand it."
In a brief email to The Post, Cuban said that as a sponsor of the Mavericks, Voyager was "supported by the team as we would any sponsor." A lawyer for Cuban and the Mavericks, Stephen A. Best, said Moskowitz has not demonstrated that Cuban's statements prompted anyone to do business with Voyager.
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