Before sentencing Monday, more than a dozen letters were submitted by attorneys for Aspiration Partners co-founder Joe Sanberg — including one from the NBA — in an effort to convince the judge to reduce the 17-year term requested by prosecutors for each of the two fraud counts.
Sanberg pleaded guilty in October to federal charges of conspiracy to defraud investors of $248 million by portraying the now-defunct Aspiration as a “socially conscious and sustainable banking services and investment products” firm.
However, another letter was also submitted and was not intended to assist Sanberg.
Clippers owner Steve Ballmer’s attorney David N. O’Melveny of O’Melveny & Myers. Kelly wrote that Ballmer was defrauded out of a $60 million investment in Aspiration and that the damage done to his reputation is “immeasurable”.
Five page victim impact statement Concludes: “Mr. Ballmer’s losses are not measured solely, or even primarily, on the balance sheet. They are measured in reputational damage that will take years to repair, and in the impact it will have on future efforts to do good on a larger scale.
“We ask the court to impose a sentence that takes into account those harms, promotes respect for the law, and deters those who would seek to appropriate the reputations of others to further fraudulent purposes.”
The letter said the Clippers lost a $300 million sponsorship deal with Sanberg in exchange for the team wearing the Aspiration jersey patch. Nearly $20 million paid by the Clippers for carbon offset purchases and $60 million Ballmer invested in the company were also lost.
Ballmer, the former longtime CEO of Microsoft, accused Sanberg of targeting him for his well-known interest in environmental sustainability and exaggerating their ties to convince others to invest in the fraudulent company. In the letter, Ballmer says he met Sanberg only once.
Ballmer was added in November as a defendant in an existing civil lawsuit against Sanberg and several others associated with Aspiration. Eleven investors in Aspiration have accused Ballmer and other defendants of fraud and aiding and abetting fraud, with the plaintiffs seeking at least $50 million in damages.
The letter dismisses the allegations in the lawsuit as “nonsense”, stating that Ballmer was added as a defendant because of his “visibility and resources”, and reiterating that Ballmer himself is a victim of fraud. The letter said this action has damaged his reputation, “and has linked Mr. Ballmer to Sanberg’s fraud in the public eye.”
However, the letter to the court made no mention of the $28 million contract Clippers star Kawhi Leonard signed with Aspiration for endorsement and marketing work. Players are allowed to make individual endorsements and other business deals, but the issue is whether the Clippers participated in arranging side deals in addition to introducing Aspiration officials to Leonard.
Leonard has addressed the allegations only once, denying wrongdoing and saying, “I understand the full contract and the services I was required to perform. As I said, I don’t deal with conspiracies or click-bait analysts or ongoing journalism.”
This arrangement could be considered circumventing the NBA salary cap, a serious violation of league rules. Ballmer adamantly denied arranging the deal between Aspiration and Leonard, who by all accounts owed no duty to Aspiration.
The NBA is investigating the complex relationship between Ballmer, Leonard and Aspiration. One of the letters submitted to the judge by Sanberg’s attorney is from the law firm conducting the investigation, and it says the disgraced executive provided documents and information helpful to the NBA investigation during two in-person interviews.
Dave Anders of Wachtel Lipton wrote, “In all of our dealings with Mr. Sanberg, both directly and through his attorney, he provided information that was consistent with our review of contemporaneous documents and other evidence.” “Mr. Sanberg’s cooperation greatly aided our investigation, including our ability to develop a more complete understanding of the key events.”
The ledger will eventually include the results of the NBA’s investigation into the allegations against Ballmer and Leonard. And this finding could affect both their reputations more than Sanberg’s fraudulent dealings.
