Lawyer Files Suit Claiming LeBron James Is His Son, But in Denial
Updated: A onetime senior legal adviser with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission claims in a lawsuit that he is the likely father of LeBron James.
Leicester Bryce Stovell, a 1980 graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, alleges James agreed to a paternity test, but he or his mother tampered with the results, according to TMZ and the New York Post. A lawyer with Squire Sanders & Dempsey in Cleveland, regional managing partner Frederick Nance, had arranged the test, according to the suit filed in Washington, D.C., federal court.
The suit claims Stovell, now 55, had sex with James’ mother, Gloria James, after meeting her at a Washington, D.C., bar in 1984. He later learned she was only 15 years old. She told Stovell she was pregnant but didn’t identify him as the father, the suit (PDF posted by TMZ) says.
“Due to anger at perceived abandonment and conflict arising from his image as a successful fatherless child from the projects, he [LeBron James] has come to direct and control, conspire in, or recklessly aid and abet his mother’s unjustifiable attempts to acknowledge that I am his father,” the suit says.
The suit seeks $4 million in damages and claims fraud, defamation, misrepresentation, breach of oral contract and tortious interference with contract.
The stories identify Stovell as a lawyer with the Securities and Exchange Commission. His LinkedIn profile says he worked at the SEC from 1983 to 2002 and he is now in private practice. The Blog of Legal Times reports that Stovell filed a racial discrimination complaint against the SEC in 1999. The SEC agreed to a settlement (PDF) in which Stovell received $230,000 but did not admit fault
Last updated July 9 to include information from the Blog of Legal Times.
