Tim Duncan’s former financial advisor has been charged by the SEC with two counts of wire fraud after conducting an investigation for more than a year. Charles Banks IV is accused of defrauding a client that is not named in the SEC’s public lawsuit, but a cursory reading of the activity under investigation points to Duncan as the defrauded client.
Duncan first became aware of the alleged fraud when he and his lawyers were reviewing his finances during his 2013 divorce proceedings, and the longtime San Antonio Spurs forward sued Banks in 2015. Banks is accused of convincing Duncan to invest in several ventures spanning different industries, most of which Banks had a direct involvement in and were not doing particularly well.
According to Duncan in his lawsuit from 2015, Banks defrauded him of upwards of $20 million. However, the indictment seems to only account for $10 million in one specific investment, a sports entity called Gameday Entertainment. Banks was the chairman of Gameday and allegedly convinced Duncan to invest and loan the company $7.5 million and set the investments up in ways that made Duncan open to far more liability than would be normal for any outside investor.
Duncan still has several lawsuits open against the specific companies he was defrauded by, but this is a step in the right direction for him. Hopefully other athletes pay attention to his case and take a closer look at their own financial advisors to make sure everything’s on the up and up.
Throughout the course of his 20-year career, Tim Duncan has made nearly $240 million playing basketball, per Basketball-Reference.
(Express-News; h/t: Pounding The Rock)
