Malik Beasley is being sued by his former marketing agency for failing to pay back in full a $650,000 advance, according to ESPN.
The lawsuit, filed by Hazan Sports Management Group in April, is seeking $2.25 million in damages from the NBA veteran, who was revealed to be under federal investigation over gambling allegations earlier this week.
The company alleged that Beasley has “financial issues” and that they had “received little more than drips and drabs of sporadic payments and vague promises to repay the balance over time.”
In the lawsuit, Hazan Sports wrote that the firm “elected to take a chance and make a substantial investment of time, effort, and resources in a player with known issues (including and especially financial issues)” when Beasley signed with them in November 2023, per ESPN.
The latest legal troubles for Beasley come two days after ESPN’s Shams Charania reported that the U.S. District Attorney’s office was looking into the 28-year-old for gambling on NBA games and prop bets.
“At least one prominent U.S. sportsbook detected unusual heavy betting interest on Beasley’s statistics” when he was with the Bucks in January 2024, the outlet’s report stated.
Beasley, who is a free agent, had reportedly been in talks with the Pistons on a three-year, $42 million deal to keep him in Detroit before the gambling allegations surfaced.
Steve Haney, Beasley’s attorney in the gambling probe, stressed that the NBAer has still not been charged with a crime.
“An investigation is not a charge,” Haney said. “Malik is afforded the same right of the presumption of innocence as anyone else under the U.S. Constitution. As of now, he has not been charged with anything.”
Beasley is the third player to get in hot water recently due to gambling allegations.
Last year, the Raptors’ Jontay Porter was banned from the league for life after he was found to have manipulated his performance for gambling purposes.
Heat guard Terry Rozier was investigated for gambling allegations earlier this year, although he was cleared of any wrongdoing earlier this week, per Charania.