Lonzo Ball has cut ties with longtime family friend and Big Baller co-founder Alan Foster after discovering of his criminal record and because of concerns about his involvement in roughly $1.5 million missing from Ball’s personal and business accounts, according to a joint report by Ramona Shelburne and Paula Lavigne of ESPN:
Ball told ESPN that he believes that Alan Foster, a friend of Lonzo’s father for almost a decade who owns 16.3 percent of Big Baller Brand, had “used his access to my business and personal finances to enrich himself. As a result, I have decided to sever all ties with Alan, effective immediately.”
According to report, Ball had privately expressed concerns to his father, LaVar Ball, over Foster’s business plans:
According to documents and emails reviewed by ESPN, questions about Foster’s business decisions and communication were first raised last fall to Lonzo and LaVar by Lonzo’s financial adviser. That adviser, Humble Lukanga of Life Line Financial Group, alleged in an October email that Lonzo’s personal taxes and Big Baller’s taxes could not be completed on time due to an inability to account for the whereabouts of $1.5 million.
Sources close to the Ball family told ESPN that Lonzo expressed his concerns about Foster to his father several times over the past few months but deferred to LaVar to manage the situation.
Those concerns were heightened when Ball was made aware of Foster’s criminal past, which included jail time for money laundering and fraud:
Two weeks ago, in an interview with Lonzo that covered various on- and off-court topics, an ESPN reporter asked him questions about the status of Big Baller Brand and also whether he had been aware that Foster had a prior criminal record that involved financial misdeeds. In 2002, Foster was sentenced to more than seven years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of mail fraud and two counts of money laundering as part of a scheme that defrauded 70 investors of $4 million, according to federal court records obtained by ESPN. Foster was also ordered to pay $3.7 million in restitution to victims.
This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
