March 15, 2017
A Houston man filed a lawsuit Monday against former Sixers star Allen Iverson, alleging that the NBA Hall of Famer's bodyguard assaulted him outside of a local strip club last April, breaking four ribs and leaving him with chronic back pain.
The lawsuit, filed in Harris County Court by Derrik Blackmon, names Iverson, his bodyguard Carl Anthony James Jr. and Trumps Inc. dba Club Onyx as defendants.
Blackmon has accused James of throwing him outside of the club on April 6, 2016, in full view of several bouncers, and throwing him to the ground before proceeding to kick him repeatedly in the ribs. Per the lawsuit, Blackmon was diagnosed with fractures to his sixth through ninth ribs.
At no point in the lawsuit is it alleged that Iverson was present at the club at the time of the incident.
This is not the first time Iverson has been embroiled in litigation surrounding a violent bodyguard at a strip club. In 2007, while playing for the Denver Nuggets, Iverson was ordered to pay $260,000 to a Maryland man who sued him over a 2005 incident at the Eyebar nightclub in Washington, D.C. The plaintiff claimed Iverson's bodyguard struck him in the head with a bottle after he refused to leave a VIP area, sparking a brawl with Iverson's security detail that resulted in multiple injuries.
Details of Iverson's propensity to spend lavishly at strip clubs were revealed two years ago when former teammate Matt Barnes told Sports Illustrated's Chris Ballard that the star would toss away as much as $40,000 every time he went out to a club. Iverson later disputed the claim, although separate accounts of his troubled career off the court were published in Kent Babb's biography "Not A Game," which paints a picture of an incredibly talented athlete whose profligate spending landed him in debt by the end of his playing days.
Blackmon is seeking punitive damages for negligence and gross negligence as well as payment for his medical bills.
Iverson was inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame last fall and will return to the court this summer in a three-on-three league backed by Ice Cube. He and his attorney did not Scomment on the lawsuit.
