The Moment of Troops, the Power Couple and the Clippers' Everything Connection: Kawhi-Gate, Part XVII

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out, brought to you by Apple Card. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. This might not just be an NBA problem. This might be securities fraud. Right after this. You really want the real answer to this? What frequent flyer status are you at right now? All right, so on American, it goes silver, gold, platinum, platinum pro, executive platinum. That's the highest that you can achieve with flying. But then there's a level above executive platinum called concierge key. It's invite only. That's where I'm at right now. David, where are you at? I gave up my concierge key. I lost it because it just, it was a temporary thing. But I have enough miles that I'm good. I'm George Clooney. I'm George Clooney. I have this many miles. You're also in a series whose outcome remains up in the air. We're calling this part 17, but I've lost count. I mean, you got your folder? David, do you have your folder? Have you not looked into your folder as you promised us you would do? Do not look, David, is the first sheet in David's folder. What's in those folders is new stuff that is, I think, going to answer the question that many people, I presume, are asking themselves. You're asking to us right now, which is, why are you still doing this? Why are you doing part 17? Especially since the NBA has already given the Clippers the biggest punishment in league history. And Kawhi Leonard has just signed a two-year, $115 million extension with Toronto Raptors. Yeah. And the Clippers now have an interim governor, guys, with Steve Ballmer banned for a year. A lawyer by the name of John Gibson, who declared the team's mission for this coming season just last week. Build bridges, strengthen our culture of compliance, build on our team and organization. That is the work to be done. So let's move forward together with confidence. Did you look at the background they gave him? They couldn't give him a calm, like, beautiful sunset or sunrise. They gave him, like, stormy, hurricane-level seas. I also thought, I've never heard in any sort of kind of inspirational video or whatever, our main bullet point is to build a culture of compliance. Holy s**t. Well, they're building bridges. They're building a culture. And, David, who is not the Clippers' governor, notably? The alternate governors were Dennis Wong and Gillian Zucker. And Gillian Zucker is suspended and gone, so it can't be her. Dennis Wong, because of reporting that you've done, seems to be not eligible to be the governor, quite clearly, because he would have been the natural choice to do it in Steve's absence. So they went with someone who represented the Clippers in a lawsuit against Donald Sterling, actually. And he is a well-known lawyer out there in L.A. Well, we continue to search for where Dennis Wong went. But I just should also point out that all of this talk, all of the rhetoric, is the stuff that an interim governor might also say if the Department of Justice was going currently investigating your team because of four secret side deals that you made with Kawhi Leonard. An NBA scheme, of course, which may or may not resemble an alleged criminal conspiracy to violate securities law, given that two Clippers' sponsors we've previously investigated are now being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission as well. Which reminds me, I mean, of what the NBA's outside counsel, Wachtell Lipton, told us in their 36-page summary report. Given the scope of this matter and its complexity, there is always more that could be done. And, considering the public's interest in this matter, more information will likely surface over time. But what Wachtell's report establishes, for all to see, David, as you well recall, is that before the Clippers' quote-unquote sustainability partner, Aspiration, made its deal with the ninth richest man in the world, Steve Ballmer, the Clippers brokered three secret deals with those three other sponsors, all of which, were signed in 2020 and paid out, per Wachtell, in 2021, thanks to Gillian Zucker, Ballmer's president of business. During a six-day span in early June 2020, Ms. Zucker made a series of email quote-unquote introductions to executives at three companies with which the Clippers were in active conversations about potential business relationships. Boingo, a provider of wireless and other communications networks, Daktronics, a manufacturer of scoreboards and video displays, and Lockton, an insurance brokerage. But the NBA's report, notably, stopped in 2022, which is exactly the same time frame in which we here at PTFO started examining the missing $1.75 million quarterly payments that Aspiration owed Camp Kawhi in September of 2022 and then December of 2022. That's Q3 and Q4 of 2022. Whereas Kawhi, by the way, having just relocated from his quite nice San Diego County estate to Toronto, continues to be the fun guy whose LLCs were owed a total value of $66 million in those capture convention payments per Wachtell's accounting, even though Kawhi continues to claim that he did not know about any of the rule-breaking involved in any of this sh**, thus receiving a relative slap on the wrist of $700,000 from Commissioner Adam Silver in the beginning of this year's NBA season. Kawhi Leonard, who's been in the NBA since the beginning of his career, has been one of the most successful NBA players in the NBA for more than a decade. Kawhi Leonard, who has been in the NBA since the beginning of his career, has been one of the most successful NBA players in the NBA since the beginning of his career, has been one of the most successful NBA players in the NBA since the beginning of his career, has been one of the most successful NBA players in the NBA should be aware of is Captive Portal, which also might be a description for a series that happens to be sucking people into it all of the time as if they are prisoners of our own reporting. Yes, we have been waiting, breadcrumbing, Boingo for a long time here. Because when Boingo pops up, yeah, you don't have a choice. You didn't have a choice at the airport, on Delta, as I was once subscribing to Boingo monthly. I'm the idiot who was like, yeah, fine, I'll just pay it monthly. I was doing that as a former Platinum Medallion member, by the way. Pablo, this is the part where I take the concierge keys, and we get it for free. Okay, alright. Well, speaking of there being levels inside of levels, what else, I mean, did Wachtel say about this company that is known for relentlessly haunting travelers and visitors to the Intuit Dome as the Clippers exclusive Wi-Fi provider? Boingo, quote, purported initially to cooperate, but then supplied information that was inconsistent or not credible to investigators and ultimately refused to cooperate further. End quote. This is not uncommon, Pablo. Just FYI, when you're asked questions in an investigation that it's not under subpoena, Wachtel couldn't subpoena, and basically you try to answer them, and then when you say to yourself, wait a minute, are we being implicated here? Are we part of this? Did we do something we shouldn't have done? Oh, crikey. Our signal dropped out. We are clamming up. Our service is broken up. So when you ultimately refuse to cooperate further, that is a position you never want to be in as a public company, a private company, an individual. You never want to start something you can't finish when it comes to authorities. And so what we wanted to find out here on the show is why did the service drop out? And so this is going to be an episode about what once in future Toronto Raptors superstar Kawhi Leonard knew personally and what the U.S. government now wants to know itself and how to connect several important things that the NBA to date has not. , and we'll be right back. So guys, before we relive the single occasion when Kawhi Leonard was confirmed to do any activity for Boingo Wireless, which remains the only verifiable sponsorship activation he ever really did across secret contracts totaling $66 million, we do need to reintroduce people to Steve Ballmer's president of business operations and right-hand woman. She, Killian Zucker, kind of had the job that you had. You were the president of the Marlins. Her job was to also build a new stadium, worked as an executive in motorsports, married an executive in software, served as a commissioner for the state of California under Arnold Schwarzenegger. I'm just waiting for Amin to do a quick Arnold Schwarzenegger here. What killed the dinosaurs? The ice age! We'll take that. And her mandate, of course, with the Clippers, as directed by former Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, was to take certain risks that the previous regime under Donald Sterling would not. As she explained to Fortune Magazine, it turns out, in July of 2025. So there wasn't a lot of bold thinking. And I wasn't there, so I don't know what the propensity was for risk-taking, but I think it was actually really, really small. And Steve is exactly the opposite. He is like, hey, go for it. Try things. Be smart about it, but if you realize, something's not working, then you pivot. It's not that, you know, if you fail, you're in some massive amount of trouble. And if you don't think boldly and try things that are hard, you can't really have big wins. And he understands that. I was in charge of baseball and business, and my job was to do the best possible thing every single moment to make the company more money, to make the team worth more, and to win games. But as for why, as for why there is a one-year ban for Steve Ballmer and Gillian Zucker, I mean, I just want to have you here quickly table read the part of Uncle Dennis Robertson, who requested approximately $10 million a year for his nephew beyond his NBA contract in violation of said salary cap, according now to Ballmer's president of basketball, Lawrence Frank, who apparently took contemporaneous notes on an alleged NBA conspiracy. And I will be the voice of the Wachtell omniscient narrator in the firm's summary report to the NBA. Quote, Mr. Robertson complained to Mr. Ballmer that Ms. Zucker was making introductions for bullshit deals. And that? I can't wait on her. I have to get paid. End quote. Uncle Dennis couldn't wait. He was in a real rush apparently in 2020. This was months after Kawhi, his nephew, signed with the Clippers. And David, here you go. I will ask you to represent the rest of the Clippers' C-suite here because, quote, Mr. Ballmer responded by telling Mr. Robertson that he and Clippers' personnel were all collective workers to try to help Kawhi achieve his financial goals. And Ms. Zucker assured Mr. Robertson that Mr. Ballmer would follow through on his promise. End quote. Which takes us now, all of us, to the Boingo Daktronics locked-in deal-making with Kawhi in June of 2020. The thing we mentioned before. And what does Wachtell say, David, about when those bills got paid to KL2 LBS LLC? The total due to Mr. Leonard under the Boingo Daktronics and locked-in agreements was $18 million. All $18 million was paid to Mr. Leonard by August 2021. All $18 million given to Kawhi from those three sponsors, by August 2021. While all three sponsors, aforementioned, almost simultaneously received lucrative business arrangements, I mean, with the Clippers in exchange. In early June 2020, at the time of Ms. Zucker's quote-unquote introductions, none of Boingo, Daktronics, and locked-in had commercial agreements with the Clippers. But all three companies were in active discussions to provide business services to the team, or its arena. To put this into layman's terms, this was a case of, if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, and we'll live happily ever after. Quote, within weeks following the quote-unquote introductions, either before or on the same day as the company signed endorsement agreements with Mr. Leonard, each company entered into a multi-million dollar consulting agreement with the Clippers. David, in your role that was similar to Gillian Zucker's, dealing with franchise sponsors, building a stadium, had you ever heard of this before? The whole fake multi-million dollar jobs for the companies, the sponsors themselves? There's a little bit of, hey, hey, hey, if I've got ten candidates to be an unpaid intern, and there's someone I can help who I do business with, who does business with me, I'm going to do that. But multi-million dollar consulting agreements? No, I did not do that. But this brings us, incidentally, to an even crazier blind item from the NBA's independent investigation. Beyond the Clippers' relationships with the three companies as potential partners in lucrative services agreements, Ms. Zucker had personal relationships at two of the companies. At one, her husband was chair of the board of directors during the relevant time period, and she also had a 30 year working relationship with that company's CEO. That reads salacious, but it's a small world with CEOs. It's not uncommon to know people at different companies. For two married couples, a power couple, one to have a huge job at one company, and one to have a huge job even sometimes at a competitor's company, it is possible that things like that exist. I don't want to use that as the sole basis of impugning Zucker whatsoever. But I do want to dwell on what David was just referencing. The chairman of the board that Clippers' president of business, Gillian Zucker, married. The software executive that we alluded to before. Because this dude's name is Lance Rosenzweig. And here he is now in a photo naturally in the Philippines. Full circle. He's meeting with a bunch of employees overseas. This was before he took the reins as chairman of the board of, you guessed it, Boingo Wireless. Beginning in 2019. Taking us into the relevant time period we are diving into here today. And during this same window of time, guys, the same window in which Lance Rosenzweig's partner seemed to be very interested in Lance Rosenzweig's company, there was this headline. Boingo Wireless faces alleged securities violations over acquisition by private equity firm which now raises a very important question what exactly was boingo board chair lance rosenzweig's whole role in selling that company and what does it have to do with the deals that boingo was making with both kawaii leonard individually as well as the clippers as reportedly negotiated by lance's wife gillian zucker to answer this we now turn to the guy who had previously helped us break down the finances of daktronics and otherwise works as the publisher of hunter brook media the funding arm of which holds no positions against either boingo or daktronics and of course i am talking about our old friend sam koppelman who describes the chairman of a company's board this way it can be kind of a cushy job where you're signing and reclining in this case though lance wasn't just some passive chair of the board because boingo which was a publicly traded company regulated by the sec it was getting acquired it was being taken private and who was acquiring boingo wireless to take it private a private equity firm that would become known as digital bridge yeah we're building a lot of bridges in this episode it turns out and i want to connect this now to the wachtel report and so how does that timeline specifically overlap with lance rosenzweig as the board chair trying to sell boingo to digital bridge those email introductions from gillian zucker that connected boingo with uncle dennis that was around june 6th lance sat on the steering committee overseeing this sale which met on june 5th the day before then june 24th and then again on july 2nd of 2020 so it brackets the dates when this deal allegedly took place between the clippers and kawaii and boingo which is one hell of a convenient threesome because in june of 2020 kawaii's uncle let's call had set those quote financial goals end quote and then boingo proceeded to get revenue from the clippers seven figures and steve ballmer's problem in this story i will remind you as well was not the money itself but how to funnel it allegedly to kawaii which now brings us back to gillian's husband which is basically to say that this guy is the chairman of a public company actively selling that company at the same moment his wife's team became a boingo counterparty twice on terms that the nba's law firm says were induced by clipper's business on a deal that was never announced you know the thing i can't help but recognize almost immediately having done a couple of parts of the series with you is the level of economic urgency which reminds me of the story of aspiration and daktronics both of whom really needed steve ballmer's money they relied on him to the tune in total of over nine figures of revenue in order to keep their entities afloat and my understanding at this point is that when you do a a move like this to go public you know there might be some sloppiness there could be things paperwork falling through the cracks and in this case boingo did actually have to amend some of its sec filings which we found grinding tape with your producers in april of 2021 and there's something very interesting in this amended filing which happens to be i mean in the folder in front of you as you sit in miami right now item 13 certain relationships and related transactions and director independence and then we move down to the section labeled related party transactions quote since january 1 2020 there has not been a transaction in excess of 120 000 in which any director or any member of the immediate family had or will have a direct or indirect material interest end quote and so david for anyone in our audience who did not also watch the episode we did together with sam koppelman about billionaire owner mark walter and the lakers and the dodgers can you just briefly explain how yes lots of couples can do business together across different companies but related party transactions and the disclosure thereof are a thing a part of securities law because why i fill out these forms with any board i've ever been on you have to fill out related party transaction forms do you do business with any of the companies that our company or our charity does business with this is all standard and the reason why disclosure matters it's the way to level the playing field with ordinary everyday investors yes this is something that guards against conflicts of interest not being disclosed it guards against alleged self-dealing in which the two individuals are favored at the expense of perhaps the people whose money is also riding on such businesses yes the disclosure matters and the president of the clipper is being married to the chairman of the boingo board this power couple i i might argue just based on my understanding of science that might qualify as immediate family with direct or indirect material interest that boingo's investors and or buyers should probably know about i spoke to several former sec enforcement officers about this deal and they all said that this is the exact kind of thing that related party disclosures are there for one of them told me quote there would be disclosure issues about the fake private deal because it should be known by both parties it was a material deal so it should be disclosed another former sec enforcement officer said of this deal it's clearly over the line end quote so we should say here that we did reach out for comment from lance rosenzweig as well as gillian zucker via clippers pr as well as a spokesperson for boingo wireless about this seemingly material interest and we received no response to our detailed questions from boingo pr and no immediate response from rosenzweig or the clippers or digital bridge for that matter what you guys should now know is that we have spoken to four former sec attorneys about boingo wireless and steve ballmer and gillian zucker and the clippers and as one put it simply to us quote the sec might wrap this into the kauai investigation we'll see what exactly happens where these investigations go but repeatedly sec officers told me that if they're investigating daktronics and if they're investigating aspiration and if they're looking into this whole arrangement there is 100 going to be a desire to establish the quote pattern and practice taking place and they're going to want to scrutinize all of these kinds of interactions which could mean that kauai or gillian or lance all of these people people like steve ballmer might be hauled in to testify and share their side of the story because the public story the story in the filings doesn't really add up which in retrospect may may also explain why boingo suddenly stopped cooperating with wachtell lipton's nba investigation i imagine boingo they're like sure we'll help out with your nba investigation into the salary cap we love the nba yeah whatever man and then at some point some lawyer was like guys um this might not just be an nba problem this might be securities fraud right at that point i imagine what boingo was asking themselves is so are we free from this what's the statute of limitations sam in other words on this sort of a thing when i asked the former sec enforcement officers they all kind of said that the statute of limitations is generally for this kind of securities fraud five years it could be six years if it's conspiracy and given that a lot of this conduct was in 2020 or 2021 it might be a you know three-pointer from the corner hits the back rim up in the air swish kind of a buzzer beater for the sec just like quite lettered i guess the uh philadelphia 76ers in 2019. how many bounces four bounces four sponsors david i think it's important to note that in kawaii's statement after the punishment came out he was very careful not in any way to acknowledge his knowledge of any salary cap circumvention of any issues with any endorsement deals of any kind because i assume he started listening to an actual lawyer and someone who pointed out that there is some exposure here for kawaii leonard when it comes to the sec investigations and while you turned on balmer and while you got away with seven hundred thousand dollars slap on the wrist and you get to have your contract not voided and end up in toronto with an extension do yourself a favor and shut the yapper quote leonard said he had no knowledge of anyone's intent to circumvent the nba's salary cap he said i accept full responsibility for lapses in judgment by people within my inner circle and regret the - Look, the people, Kawhi Leonard, steve ballmer that we started our whole series with they have very consistently in public divorced themselves from the actual wrongdoing that we have been reporting on for a year as we consider the ticking clock i mean bringing us back to walk tell sense of time i'm really curious because when i think about an autograph session that we had at the beginning of the episode were twice signing the item on the lady's back using her back as kind of support when did that actually take place and does that event then delay the start of the clock for the sec in terms of their investigation and the statute of limitations i mean now you're on to something big i mean because when you're investigating somebody and you're part of the sec the first thing you're doing before any resources can be spent is figuring out what's the statute of limitations for the crime and what's the statute of limitations for the crime and what's the statute of limitations for the crime that we think was committed and when does that clock start ticking and so what they're always looking for is an event that can delay the start of the clock so you don't need a four bounce three pointer from the corner over the outstretched hands of joelle and bead you can just have a nice tip in by og with 1.4 seconds left but i do think it is worth asking that question what did san diego state's finest two-time nba champion on the back of in part that buzzer beater kawaii leonard no and when did he know it what did he do and that question i mean we will answer when after the break so we have been spending a truly absurd amount of time learning about two things here that most americans only think about when they are furious at their failures one wireless internet to the federal government and in the world of wi-fi guys there is this thing called a d a s system all you got to know about the d a s system is that it's kind of like the central plumbing system for all let's say twenty thousand fans trying to get online inside of the intuit dome because in order to get online the internet as a u_s_ senator once said it's a series of tubes but this takes us now at long last to the boingo c_e_o_ who had a thirty-year working relationship with gillian zucker who's a guy i mean named mike finley the michael finley dallas maverick san antonio spur phoenix sun badger the badger yeah yeah not former wisconsin badger and former phoenix sun's great and current dallas maverick's executive guy who took that beer out of luke donchich's hand before he got traded to the lakers not michael finley but mike finley okay this guy oh yeah he doesn't look anything like him kinda looks like the opposite of him actually in some ways but a lot like gillian zucker he used to be an executive associated with motorsports and this is mike finley loves him some d a s or daz systems as he explained on boingo's earnings call in november of twenty twenty one of the new venues signed in the third quarter was for a long-term daz right at the new aztec stadium at san diego state university and speaking of stadiums we've also been engaged to consult on the connectivity solutions that will be built into inglewood basketball and entertainment center the new home of the los angeles clinton clippers the clippers have been clear that their vision is to create the best home in basketball and we're honored to help bring this vision to life san diego state what a pleasant coincidence because that's the alma mater of the one and only quite lettered an alma mater which went unmentioned in the walk tell report as you will note just for a second here but about a year after that earnings call now we're now in october twenty twenty one which is again after walk tell said that the millions boingos secret really owed the clippers and kawaii got paid c_e_o_ mike finley then hosted a keynote panel as something called the mobile world congress and this keynote panel was titled you not connects everything it's that's the slogan for our podcast right there p_t_f_o_ subtitle connect everything and now we might make the connection of who mike finley is talking to in this keynote panel come on it's one of the reasons we've been working so closely with one go for so long for many years now that you've been involved in this project over three years we just put the shovel on the ground and the idea that if we don't get the foundation right now that the rest of its gonna work efficiently so i mean that's a perfect you obviously for going to but that is why we think that a converged neutral network where you're you'll notice there all that billions are caressed in the data that the clippers were closely with one go for over three years so again this connect everything keynote was in october twenty twenty one that means i mean it's a math here over three years would mean they were working together closely as of twenty eighteen pre pandemic folks a timeline which also came as news to at least one former bongo executive that we interviewed requested anonymity to speak freely about the inner workings of the company because this executive i mean said that it's not a good thing because it's not a good thing to do this all that they would tell us was they had a deal with the clippers and it was a consulting agreement and it meant that we were going to get the business as the into it don't was built it's not uncommon for boy and go to offer up front money as a sponsorship to get a deal or like sometimes all over to pay a non-profit at the stadium or airport or whoever's includes with and that's how they get around that hey you buy a table at my charity event i'll buy a table at your charity event so makes it look like we're doing business at all these different charity events we wouldn't do business in our stadium with a company if they did not buy season tickets or they did not do some sort of corporate sponsorship deal that is normal but this i mean is what may be abnormal as our source continues but a couple times they mentioned that the clippers had paid us and that's not normal because usually we're paying them this all happened very quickly and then nobody talked about it usually they would play the all i do is win win win song at our meetings and do that for the clippers this is great these are some great quotes but in terms of what kawaii leonard himself knew here guys a very popular theory is that he had no idea kawaii leonard did not have any knowledge of this salary cap circle mentioned that was going about any of this salary capture convention stuff of course that it was simply his uncle dennis docu signing kawaii's name twice across the 28 million dollar kl to aspire llc contract that we have obtained and published and that uncle dennis's nephew additionally and purely obliviously also got pledged 20 million dollars in equity from aspiration to do nothing but now it is worth us finally finally diving in to the one and only instance we could find of kawaii actually showing up for any of his three secret additional no-show jobs worth 18 million dollars and counting because this david happened when this looks like a facebook post from september 21st 2022 special thanks to boingo and kawaii leonard two-time finals mvp two-time world champion member of the la clippers for coming out to this event with kawaii leonard who is going to be the winner of the kawaii clippers event hashtag boingo for military hashtag kawaii clippers hashtag clipper nation hashtag camp pendleton the account that's posting this on facebook is mccs camp pendleton amin and how would you describe the photos for those not watching on youtube or apple podcast what's going on here we have kawaii signing an item for three servicemen thank you for your service and then the other photo is it looks like uh a single solitary serviceman receiving the item and turning away but in the background pablo we see servicemen all lined up in uniform hats on fatigue camo all that stuff lined up clearly to meet the one and only kawaii leonard yeah and these photos from late september 2022 just to do the accounting here again not posted by boingo wireless but by the marine corps community services division at camp pendleton this is looking up on google maps we'll show you the map here about a half hour drive from kawaii's estate his very nice estate in san diego county and just uh the number of likes this post has i mean this this loan endorsement appearance he made how many likes does it have as of today well it went crazy folks because a grand total of 119 people felt compelled to hit that thumbs up like button on this facebook post also you got six comments and four shares not exactly mass advertising as one former boingo employee directly familiar with Kawhi's sponsorship, put it to us, David. I can't remember us having a celebrity or a basketball player come and do that type of thing. To be honest, that was honestly the only time. So I really don't know why we would partner with him to do that, end quote. What another person familiar with the planning of this event told us is that a Boingo executive had explained to them that Kawhi was showing up at this U.S. military base, quote, out of the goodness of his own heart, because he cares about the military. But what we here did, if Pablo Torre finds out, when presented with this set of facts, is in early August, file freedom of information requests of the, I guess it's now called the Department of War. No, we're not doing that. Well, what we did with these FOIA requests resulted in more than 100 pages of emails, internal emails from Camp Pendleton, the first of which, Amin, is now in the folder in front of you. Oh my God. I'm so excited to read this. Sent Friday, August 5th, 2022. Subject, NBA player slash Boingo event. Question mark, question mark. Hi, redacted. Would you be open to Boingo bringing an NBA player to one of your centers in early September? Slash mid-September. It's a Clippers player. Leonard something? Question mark, LOL. Maybe something similar to the Padres with a food and a meat and greet. Have a great day. Redacted, corporate sales manager, Camp Pendleton. To which a Marine program coordinator responds to this whole Leonard something, LOL email. David, in your folder, put on your little glasses. Yes. We would be open to that. Even maybe SMP, which means single Marine program, even maybe SMP co-host it at a fitness center and tie it in a little three-point shootout for basketball or something. But the sales manager for this base writes back, Amin. I think she wants smaller and more intimate for the meet and greet and not overwhelming. Though if 500 AD show up, no worries, LOL. Have a great day. AD, of course, meaning active duty. All of this was being planned in August of 2022. That's the chain that we're reading here. This is weeks before the September event at Camp Pendleton and weeks before an additional Boingo event with Kawhi that apparently got planned for September at San Diego State, according to an email written by a Boingo marketing manager. Although a spokesperson for San Diego State's athletics department tells us now that there was, quote, 100% nothing scheduled. for Boingo or Kawhi at San Diego State, period, never, end quote. But that email from Boingo to the military also did something else. It acknowledged the, quote, unquote, last minute organizing here. And so as we try to suss out, why is this happening? What is the driving force behind this event with the troops and Kawhi Leonard? What a former Boingo employee told us is that on August 26th, 2020, on the day of the Boingo event, on August 26th, 2020, on August 26th, 2020, Boingo and its sales team had a meeting scheduled with the Clippers. Quote, Steve's people, specifically, end quote. And this former employee, David, then provided a screenshot of a Boingo calendar for that same date where the meeting is titled Boingo Friday Forum, Teams Live, Open, Mike Finley. Clippers Financials follows that. Oh, my God. I'm a kid. This former employee also provided a photo to us. I mean, this was taken in August of 2022 as well from inside of Boingo of a couple of fun tchotchkes. Here are some golf balls that are patterned as what? Basketballs. And so they're painted like basketballs with like the paneling and the seams and everything. But also they're branded, ladies and gentlemen, these are Boingo golf ball basketballs. Orange dimpled, has the Wi-Fi full service thing going over the eye. And what the sources inside of Boingo told us is that they recall the company suddenly making these to celebrate, apparently, this deal with the Clippers in 2022 in August, September. Although you may recall Gillian Zucker telling her old friend, Boingo CEO, Mike Finley, at Connect Everything that they had been working together, I mean, since when? It's been three years or so since 2018. A Clippers spokesperson, for the record, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But one theory floating around the group chats of current and former Boingo executives as to why the company was suddenly rushing to do something, anything, David, comes from a former Boingo marketing executive who told us this. Quote, something clearly spooked them in 2018. I'm not sure if it's true or not, but I'm not sure if it's true. There were meetings with Steve and his people, and then this random event came together. It is really gross that Boingo would use their military connections to do this. Those Marines had no idea they were participating in fraud? Question mark? Reading these emails from Cam Pendleton, there is yet another kind of awkward dynamic to Kawhi's autograph session from September of 2022. This besides the fact that the military base's corporate sales manager apparently had never heard of him, which is that a bunch of the messages that we got are from people working at Cam Pendleton who were genuinely complaining about how they think the base's internet service isn't good. They were asking, whether they can get Boingo, which appeared suddenly pretty interested in them, to actually fix it. To which someone replies, David. You will see below, Boingo wants 12K from us to install some equipment so our internet work correctly. You will recall that Mike Finley, CEO of Boingo and Gillian Zucker, president of business at the Clippers, talked about, yeah, the big budget ambitions that they were going to pursue together. And this takes us, to what someone else in this email chain quite pessimistically replies, which is that Boingo had, quote, a limited budget here, which according to multiple former Boingo marketing executives in the case of the military, appears true. They recall that the company's military marketing budget for the entire year across bases all around the world was about $150,000. And so instead, about the best that Boingo could do for the troops, I mean, was this flyer. Boingo Wi-Fi, meet and greet. Two-time world champion, two-time finals MVP, member of the LA Clippers, Kawhi Leonard. David, you love deliverables in a contract. As for the deliverables for Kawhi Leonard as part of this meet and greet, you know, how long, for instance, he had to meet and or greet, what you will find next in your folder is a sponsorship contract on Marine Corps letterhead. KCCS, which is Marine Corps Community Services, shall provide a active duty center event for Kawhi Leonard appearance on September 21, 2022 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Meaning that Kawhi, in other words, David, was in and out within two hours. Although, according to Boingo's run of show for the event, which we also obtained in his FOIA request, Kawhi, more specifically, was set to greet the Marines at the event. location at 11.30 a.m. and then be back in his car by 12.30 p.m. So really, I mean, we're talking about how much meeting and greeting? An hour. When we went to meet troops overseas, guys, we did a ton of meet and greets with the troops with long lines and we would sign and do stuff for about an hour. That really does make sense to me. And for that hour of meeting and greeting, it turns out, Kawhi did not show up. Kawhi did not show up to greet Camp Pendleton alone. Among the more than 100 additional photos that we also obtained from the meet and greet through FOIA, taken by a military photographer, you guys may also recognize this guy. Oh, it's Uncle Dennis wearing a very form-fitting KL2 t-shirt. I believe that's a New Balance shirt. Yes, it is. I see the logo on the top of the shoulder right there. It's a New Balance KL2 shirt. And a white belt. But that's not all. Because if you look at this photo now of Kawhi signing the hat of an officer who was in the receiving line and we enhance. Oh, no. Look at the guy sitting behind them to the right. The person you see, Amin. Oh, yeah. That's Jeremy Castleberry, man. Who is Jeremy Castleberry, Amin? So, Jeremy Castleberry, if I'm not mistaken, Pablo, this is how, ladies and gentlemen, This is how you know I'm going off the top of the head. I believe his mind His connection to Kawhi dates back to their time at an academic institution known as San Diego State University. Well, you are on top of this, but also undershooting it because it actually started when they were 14 years old at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, California. They played AAU together. They played high school ball together. They did play, in fact, to your credit, extemporaneously at San Diego State. Kesselberry was a walk-on. But at the time of this photo, it was on the staff with the L.A. Clippers, on their coaching staff. You say, well, where did he come from? Well, he was on the staff with the Toronto Raptors prior to that. And if you're asking, well, when did he make the transition from the Raptors to the Clippers? Oh, I would place it probably summer of 2019. Did anything else happen then? Well, you know, I guess Kawhi Leonard signed with the Clippers. And as for where he is now, David, I will give you one guess as to what just happened this month. Oh, Canada. He had a great year there before. They really liked his work. They said, you know what? Come on back. We'd like to have you back a part of this. And that's why I think actually what's most interesting is that Jeremy Kesselberry is not just Kawhi's guy, has been for so long, decades. It's that he's a Clippers assistant coach at this event. He's an employee. He's an employee of the team. And that brings us to just another face that I want to show you in addition to Uncle Dennis Robertson and Jeremy Kesselberry. Because this guy in the sunglasses here, standing next to Kawhi and another service member, do you guys have a guess as to who that is? Is that our guy? That's not Mike Finley, is it? That would be Boingo CEO slash friend of Clippers executive Gillian Zucker for 30 years. Her guy, Mike Finley. There it is. And so we asked a Boingo spokeswoman why Boingo C-suite would have showed up at this event, why Boingo wouldn't post any of this on their own social media channels despite a person involved with Boingo's planning who told us, quote, I don't know why they wouldn't post it, end quote. And whether Kawhi Leonard did indeed sign all these autographs out of the goodness of his own heart for free. We are trying to get to the bottom of why certain things were never disclosed. And inside of that Pandora's box, there are lots of very relevant questions that the federal government might be interested in as it concerns a possible conspiracy to commit securities fraud. And by the way, I should say here that for the record, Boingo PR did not respond. But as you can imagine, we did not take that lack of comment here at Palo Torre Finds Out for an answer. And so David, what we did was, obtain the following document which was attached to this autograph signing. This did not come from a FOIA request, but rather from inside Boingo's accounting department. And Amin, it is inside of your folder. For an hour of meeting and greeting for the troops, Kawhi Leonard, 30 minutes from his house, got what? Total contract value, date, September 1st, 2022. Prepaid, David. Just made sure that hit the account before you even pull up to the base. And so what this also means, just to keep track here, right? We've been talking about timeline and ticking clocks. What this also means is that even beside the amount, we have now found evidence that Kawhi Leonard was in fact paid more. In September of 2022, than just the $18 million that Wachtell Lipton said he received from Boingo, Lockton, and Daktronics by August of 2021. Right? And perhaps, therefore, Amin, that statute of limitations that you were asking about, perhaps that clock might be ticking a bit longer. Perhaps. It's hugely important to keep in mind that it's not that the number that should make anybody's hair stand up on the back of their head it is what would be the reason for Boingo to actually agree to that. Because a player getting 600 plus grand to go make an appearance, I'm not going to tell you that that doesn't happen because I've seen it happen. I've made it happen. What I am going to say is, what's the payoff? What is the provenance of such an agreement? Why would Boingo do it? Because they want to be associated with the military because that is part of their community budget. Where they get associated with community events and troop-related events. Well, well. But it certainly makes it seem as though, given the timeline, that it is related to the Clippers. No question about it. But I assume Boingo is going to have to come up with a better answer than, yeah, Kawhi was worth 600 grand to us for the hour. They didn't know who he was at the base. Leonard something? Question mark? LOL? Maybe he can do a three-point contest. They literally just, like, yeah, sure, whatever. $670,000 for the hour for a post that was not posted by Boingo, but was posted by the base for 119 likes and a couple of shares. And I should say as well, as we acknowledge here that Kawhi's agent, his new agent, Harrison Gaines, and his uncle, Uncle Dennis, are not responding to our request for comment, that we did review a couple of other Boingo documents, including a strategy, a strategy deck from inside of Boingo that attests to the fact that, yes, they had a relationship with the Department of Defense, the Department of War. But I don't know if that explains the next thing that is in your folder, David, from inside of Boingo's accounting department as well. What does this document say? Clip agreement. Total contract value, $1,213,700. From September 1st of 2022. So here is another document. $1.2 million for clip agreement signed the same day as Leonard sponsorship. And unfortunately, as we do some math here, I mean, the folks at Boingo Wireless did not immediately provide any further context for these two financial documents as well, making us feel a little bit, like Wachtell-Lipton. But given that they were paid on the same day and given that they're called Leonard sponsorship and clip agreement, it does not appear to be coincidence. And in the spirit of connecting everything, in terms of how much Steve Ballmer's clippers might be behind all of this, here's where some fun math can be done for a second. Because I just want to note that if you add up $672,000 to $1.213,000, million dollars and a little change, what do you guys get? That's right around the 1.9 there, Pablo. Bang. That's about a 1.887,500, a 1.9. And if you've been watching a 16 or 17 part series over the last year, that number might sound familiar. Because in September of 2022, guys, remember that date? September of 2022? Mm-hmm. Kawhi? Kawhi Leonard was separately do something else, which we discussed back in part one of this series. That's when Dennis Wong. Dennis Wong? The non-interim governor of the Clippers made his, what I seem to recall, was around a $2 million investment in Aspiration. Yes. A company that was crumbling with auditors quitting because it was such a house of cards. And a company at which his daughter worked. That's right. So it's not even like, "Oh, I don't have a pulse on what's happening in this business I'm going to invest $2 million in." His daughter worked there. Dennis Wong, for the record, has not responded to our requests for comment. And neither has Dennis Wong's daughter. But you will accurately remember that, yes, in September of 2022, Kawhi Leonard was owed his quarterly payment of $1.75 million from a carbon credits company called Aspiration that had already gone broke. Perhaps you've heard of it. And that, at some point, Clippers co-owner Dennis Wong swoops in to pay $1.99 to Aspiration. Kawhi gets paid nine days later, the $1.75. Finally, as Uncle Dennis Robertson, as we now know from the Wachtell Report, was not shy about making demands, demands which led to Steve Ballmer and Gillian Zucker pledging to, quote, follow through on his promise. To be, quote, "collective workers" to try to help Kawhi achieve his financial goals. And so, whether this was the Q3 payment or the Q4 payment, Kawhi had payments due in September and December of 2022, all I know is that this seems like something that might be worth connecting. Connect everything. Or maybe, maybe that's just a bridge too far. I don't know. Ah, I see what you did there. But there is one more note, guys, before you have to go catch your respective flights and log on to captive Wi-Fi, because I would be remiss if I didn't inform you that Boingo Wireless very conveniently did post a press release itself in late July of this year, 2026, as the NBA's investigators and the feds and us were all closing in. I mean, Boingo Wireless to expand high-speed Wi-Fi for military families at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. They did it. Yeah. After all those emails, after all of that wondering, they fixed the busted Wi-Fi at Camp Pendleton, which had been a request apparently since 2022. And I just got to say, we've done a lot on this series, a whole lot. Since we published part one, but Boingo Wireless finally investing in Wi-Fi at Camp Pendleton. I don't know that that happens if we don't start this whole weird project together. It's of more value than a planted tree. I'll tell you that. David Sampson, Amin Elhassan, I just want to thank you and your respective wireless providers for your service. I don't deserve that. Stolen balance. This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production. And I'll talk to you next time. you