LeBron James Sued By Man Claiming To Be His Father

Lawyer Sues Basketball Star LeBron James, Alleging He Is His Father


A Washington lawyer has filed a lawsuit in federal court, claiming he is the father of basketball star LeBron James.

Leicester Stovell alleges that the athlete and his family have been involved in a cover-up to deny paternity by committing fraud and misrepresentation.

In the complaint, filed June 23, Stovell says, "I recently have concluded that a comprehensive, sophisticated and well-funded effort might well have been underway for quite some time, perhaps beginning in its present form as early as when defendant LeBron James was in high school, to frustrate identification of his real father, and that there is a likelihood that the father in question is me."

He stopped short of saying he is certain he is James' father. "I don't want to make such a definitive statement in the absence of corroborative evidence" such as DNA, he said.

Stovell said he filed the suit two weeks ago because a statute of limitations was about to expire. "I have some limitation considerations that caused me to want to file the suit before the end of June," he said.

He denied the timing had anything to do with the current LeBron mania.

James is scheduled to announce Thursday evening the team he has chosen to play for next season, a deal worth perhaps tens of millions of dollars or more. He currently plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Stovell said it never occurred to him that he could be James' father until 2006, when a colleague asked him if he was sure he didn't have a (different) son at Cornell.

"That's when I delved systematically into all of my recollections into prior relationships, and retrieved the relationship with Gloria James," he said.

The lawsuit claims Stovell met James' mother in a Washington bar and restaurant in 1984, where she was visiting from Ohio. She was 16 at the time, Stovell says, and they had sex only once.

He says he was informed by Gloria James months later that she was pregnant. He claims she told him the child would be named LeBron, similar to Leicester Bryce, Stovell's first and middle names.

Stovell says he has been trying for three years to establish paternity. The lawsuit is seeking $4 million in damages.

He is a solo legal practitioner in the District of Columbia, and filed the lawsuit on his own behalf.

A call to LeBron James' attorney, Frederick Nance of Cleveland, Ohio, was not immediately returned.

The lawsuit had been filed without much initial publicity, but was reported by the TMZ celebrity website Wednesday.

Public records show Stovell is a former government attorney with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He filed a lawsuit in 2002 against the agency, alleging racial discrimination. Federal court records show the case was settled when the commission paid him $230,000, while not admitting fault.


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Sources: CNN, Google Maps