Shaquille O'Neal Countersues Rogue Ex-Employee For Selling Private Emails

The ongoing legal squabble between former NBA baller Shaquille O'Neal and his former IT guy, Shawn Darling, just got more litigious. Last year, Shawn, who worked for Shag from 2007 to 2009, sued Shaq for intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy after he claimed the former baller was involved with some serious illegal activity and did his best to have Shawn arrested because he knew too much. That suit was dismissed last July, but Shawn refiled. Now, Shaq has fired back, claiming Shawn "stole his private emails and sold them for profit, then attempted to extort the former baller of $12 million. In the complaint (which you can read below), Shaq claims he paid Shawn $75 to $150 an hour to set up audio, computer and wireless Internet systems then in 2008, Shaq asked Shawn to create a Web site and Internet server, which would "be used to host the domain and store O'Neal's e-mails and other electronic correspondence from that point forward." But, Shawn, who never told Shaq he served in time in a Wisconsin prison for bank fraud and faced 11 other criminal charges involving fraud or forgery in the Chicago area back in the 1990s, allegedly used the server for his personal use and used the passwords Shaq provided him to steal the baller's personal correspondences, which he then sold to a gossip Web site. Shawn claims he helped Shaq plant GPS trackers on his ex-wife, Shaunie O'Neals' car and hack into her and one his jumpoff's voicemail. (Shaq even allegedly sent his sisters, Ayesha and Lateefah, to confront one of his other jumpoffs.) When Shaunie and their children refused to move from Orlando to Cleveland, "Shaq went ballistic," Shawn says, and cut them off financially. So, since he and Shaunie were close friends, Shawn says decided to launch a counterstrike against Shaq -- hence the e-mails, which Shawn claims belongs to him. Once Shaq found out what Shawn was doing, he sent this e-mail to one of his police detective friends: "Boy needs to b put in jail. we have way to many law enforcement connections to let a criminal try to get over on mine o mine. We dnt need any distraction as we deal with our harvard guy, shoe line guy, restaurant guy, real estate guy, and everything we are planning to do for the after basketball life. I promised u I would stay outta trouble, I kept my word, but cannot control somebody dtealing and selling emails. Come on now protect me from this. I lost my family because of this guy, come on now." The cop replied: "Got it he will be stopped n pay for this." They tried to frame Shawn by attempting to remotely add kiddie p0rn to Shawn's computer. In August 2010, Shawn's attorney, threatened sent a letter to Shaq saying his client will release the cache of emails he scoured from Shaq's server -- between 13,000 and 19,000 messages the former NBA star sent and received from September 2008 through January 2010 —- if he's not paid $12 million. Apparently, the attorney was working on his own, and Shawn fired him. The parties were last in court on Aug. 26 where a judge ruled Shawn cannot publicize the emails -- yet. There are more hearings scheduled and Shawn has considered launching a Web site to publish every single e-mail from Shaq's server.





source: Courthhouse News