Ray Allen may be considered a legend on the basketball courts, but in the legal court, he is fighting to clear his name of stalking charges.
According to TMZ Sports, Allen asked a Florida court to throw out charges of stalking against him after claiming he was catfished by a man pretending to be a number of attractive women. In addition to the request to dismiss, Allen has also filed legal documents to make sure the alleged catfisher doesn’t leak his “private information.”
“Ray wants nothing to do with [the alleged catfisher] and merely wants to be left alone,” Allen says in the court documents.
In the claim, Allen states that he met these “women” in “various online forums” and communicated with them and admits to sometimes sharing “private information.” The retired NBA superstar claims that after figuring out he was being catfished, that he promptly ended the relationships — but the man behind the rouse became obsessed and began posting items on social media about Ray and his family.
The court documents also state that the man would physically go to Allen’s wife’s restaurant in Orlando and post on social media about Ray before tagging family members in the posts. In an attempt to handle matters on his own, Ray revealed that he got the cyberstalker to sign a confidentiality agreement in which he agreed to stop posting about Ray — but the deal ultimately was violated causing matters to escalate and the stalker to file a restraining order against Allen for stalking; which the court granted.
Allen vehemently denies the allegations and has filed a motion for his own restraining order and filed a request to sequester the alleged stalker from exposing any information.
“Ray Allen was the victim of an online scheme to extract money and embarrass him by someone who appears to be troubled,” Allen’s attorney David Oscar Markus told TMZ. “The person who perpetrated this scheme has now started to stalk him and make threats against Ray and his family. Ray has taken legal action to put an end to the threats and to expose his manipulation and wrongdoing. Ray regrets ever engaging with this person online and is thankful they never met in person. This experience has negatively impacted Ray, and he hopes that others might use his mistake to learn the dangers of communicating online with strangers.”
Allen, 42, is the NBA’s all-time leader in 3-point field goals and attempts, making 2,973 triples in 7,429 tries over the course of an 18-year career. He last played in the NBA for the Miami Heat in the 2014 NBA Finals, before officially retiring in 2015.
