Mike Tyson and Ric Flair are taking their former cannabis partners to court.
According to Front Office Sports, Tyson and Flair have sued several former executives and a shareholder of Carma for alleged fraud, breach of contract, and other claims in relation to the cannabis businesses that use their likenesses.
The 21-count suit was filed last week in U.S. District Court in Illinois. It alleges Chad Bronstein, Adam Wilks, Nicole Cosby, and James Case for participating in a “brazen RICO conspiracy involving criminal wire fraud, embezzlement, money laundering, and extortion, as well as securities fraud and shameless self-dealing that enriched the Defendants to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.”
Bronstein, Wilks, and Cosby are former president and chairman, CEO, and chief legal and licensing officer, respectively, of Carma. Case, on the other hand, is a shareholder in the company.
“Among the claims are allegations that Bronstein, Wilks, and Cosby sold licensing rights they were not allowed to under agreements with Tyson and Flair, and that Wilks had an undisclosed ‘kickback’ deal with vape maker DomPen, under which he received “concealed payments in exchange for turning a blind eye to DomPen’s unauthorized use of CARMA’s intellectual property.’”
Tyson is a huge advocate for cannabis, and recently praised United States President Donald Trump for his executive order that reclassified cannabis on the DEA’s drug scheduling list. Rob Van Dam also reacted to the news, thanking Trump for the “birthday present.”
UPDATE: The legal team representing Chad Bronstein, Nicole Cosby and Adam Wilks issued the following statement(s) to WrestleZone in response to the original story:
“The complaint is fiction dressed up as a lawsuit,” said Jonathan Cyrluk, attorney for Chad Bronstein and Nicole Cosby. “Before filing, the plaintiffs tried to intimidate my clients with settlement demands that read more like a shakedown than a legal claim— demanding millions of dollars and attempting to force others to surrender their Carma shares. My clients won’t be bullied and are prepared to knock out this meritless lawsuit in court.”
“These claims are as credible as the people they come from – in short, the allegations are without substance,” added Terry Campbell, attorney for Adam Wilks. “This is nothing more than an attempt to spit out an earful of salacious headlines and attempt to coerce my client into paying money to them when he did nothing wrong. We will fight these meritless allegations – both the facts and the law are squarely on our side.”
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