The lawsuit, originally filed in August 2006, alleged that Sterling discriminated against African-Americans, Hispanics and families with children at apartment buildings he controls in the Koreatown section of Los Angeles.
Sterling’s wife, Rochelle, and the Sterling Family Trust were also named as defendants in the suit. Sterling owns and manages 119 apartment buildings comprising over 5,000 apartments in Los Angeles County.
According to a statement from the Justice Department, the payment is “largest monetary payment ever obtained by the department in the settlement of a case alleging housing discrimination in the rental of apartments.”
The $2.725 million penalty breaks down to a $100,000 civil fine and the other $2.625 million will be paid to a fund that will pay monetary damages to those “who were harmed by the defendants’ discriminatory practices.”
“I’m really hurt, and I really feel taken advantage of for all these years,” said Thomas, the Hall of Fame point guard and former NBA coach and executive, most recently with the Knicks. “I’m totally blindsided by this. Every time that I’ve seen Magic, he has been friendly with me. Whenever he came to a Knick game, he was standing in the tunnel [to the locker room] with me. He and [Knicks assistant coach] Herb [Williams] and I, we would go out to dinner in New York. I didn’t know he felt this way.”
As BET.com reports, NFL star Braylon Edwards punched 28-year-old Edward Givens in the face outside of a Cleveland area nightclub early Monday morning. And “The King” is not happy about it.
NBA superstar LeBron James called Edwards childish for punching his friend who is a promoter at the night club, according to ESPN.com.
Givens said he was attacked because of his friendship with James.
Givens told Cleveland.com ”Braylon comes up and started saying things, degrading me,” Givens said. “He said if it wasn’t for LeBron [James] or the Four Horsemen [James' friends and business partners], I wouldn’t have what I have, nor would I be able to get girls. Everyone knows Braylon has a problem with LeBron. Whatever jealousy he has with LeBron, he felt he needed to take it out on me.”
Remember when I said webcams were only good for podcasts, spam, and other voyeuristic activities? I may have found another use for them — movie making. Not your cheesy YouTube videos, but actually creating a film with an A-List roster of talent and multi-million dollar budget. Okay, I’m exaggerating but, start-up company Yoostar is pretty close. Read the rest of this entry »
LeBron James admits that he smoked marijuana as a 17-year-old in high school. In “Shooting Stars,” a book written by James and co-author Buzz Bissinger, which chronicles James’ rise to the NBA stardom, acknowledges that all the focus on him as a young phenom blew his head up way beyond proportion. “We had become big-headed jerks, me in particular,” James said, “and we are to blame for that, but so are adults who treated us that way and then sat back and smugly watched the self-destruction.” The book, scheduled for release in September, tells of the spotlight under which the famous teen operated during his final two years at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School. It was the period following his appearance on the cover of Sports Illustrated. James says that he and close friends Dru Joyce, Sian Cotton, Romeo Travis and Willie McGee – nicknamed the Fab Five – took full advantage of their celebrity. “I was arrogant, dubbing myself “The Chosen One,” James said. “In hindsight, I should have kept quiet, but I also was what I was, a teenager where every reporter in the world seemed to be rushing toward me at once.”
Cavs Get Shaq As anticipated, the Cleveland Cavaliers – hoping to rebound next season from an embarrassing, early exit from the NBA playoffs – have signed the aging, ailing Shaquille O’Neal, ESPN reports. The network first reported the Cavs interest in the seven-footer four months ago. Many experts picked Cleveland, behind the engine known as LeBron James, to win the NBA championship this year. But Cleveland offered little resistance to Orlando’s Dwight Howard in the middle. Shaq, 37, showed that he still has something left in the tank, finishing the most recent season averaging 17.8 points and 8.4 rebounds in 75 games with the Suns. He hadn’t played in that many games since the 1999-2000 season.
Holyfield’s Huge Home About to Go on the Block Former Heavyweight champ Evander Holyfield’s sprawling Georgia estate is back under foreclosure, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Wednesday. Unless Holyfield is able to come up with enough to pay off what he owes on the original $10 million loan by July 7, he will lose the 109-room Fairburn mansion. That’s when an auction is scheduled on the steps of the Fayette County Courthouse. Holyfield, 46, has earned more than $248 million in the ring, “but two divorces, several failed business ventures and child support payments believed to total $500,000 annually have taken a toll on his financial well-being,” writes the Journal-Constitution. A father of 11, Holyfield hasn’t stepped in the ring since December, when he was pummeled by WBA champion Nikolai Valuev in Switzerland. The last time he got a real payday was six years ago, when he got $5 million to fight James Toney. He told reporters a year ago that “I’m not broke. I’m just not liquid.” The estate, which has its own bowling alley and movie theater, is worth an estimated $20 million, and according to Holyfield it costs more than $1 million annually just to maintain. “To attack that house in any way, or suggest he get rid of it … that’s just not going to fly with him,” Holyfield’s former accountant Sam Gainer said last June. “That’s his trophy, his symbol of success.”
A judge ruled Monday that former NBA forward Jayson Williams may remain free on bail as he awaits a retrial on manslaughter charges in the shooting death of his limousine driver in 2002. While he was acquitted in 2004 of aggravated manslaughter and the jury deadlocked on the reckless manslaughter charge, he was convicted of trying to cover up the shooting of his hired driver, Costas “Gus” Christofi, at his mansion in Alexandria Township, N.J. Read the rest.
Ron Artest, the quick-to-the-draw Houston Rockets forward, got into a heated exchange with the Black Mamba, Kobe Bryant, during the Lakers-Rockets game. So how did Bryant respond?
Former NBA all-star Charles Barkley should be getting out of an Arizona jail tomorrow, following his three-day stint for drunken driving in Scottsdale on New Year’s Eve. He’s been serving his term in Arizona’s notorious Tent City, where Joe Arpaio, the self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff in America” rules with an iron fist. “I’m an equal incarcerator,” Arpaio said of Barkley, who spent the past couple days in one of the tents. “We don’t discriminate.” Arpaio is known for issuing inmates cartoonish, black-and-white-striped jailbird suits, linking them together on chain gangs and forcing them to sleep in tents. Barkley was spared the stripes and the chain gang, given a blue and red sweatsuit instead. Reporters who showed up at a brief but wide-ranging news conference on Saturday tried to reconcile Arpaio’s “don’t discriminate” comment with the fact that Barkley was afforded much hipper attire than the average inmate. “None of the work-release people do that,” Barkley snapped. “But if y’all really, really want to put me as low as I can go, I can do that and make you feel better. I know when [someone is] famous, you like to see people humiliated.” The 45-year-old Barkley acknowledged, however, that he had “screwed up” and was getting what he deserved. “I don’t blame anybody but myself,” he said. He actually was supposed to serve 10 days, but the term was reduced because he attended an alcohol program. When Arpaio released a book some years ago, Barkley endorsed it on the back. “This man, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, is a role model for all Americans,” Barkley wrote in the blurb.
Black Web 2.0 covers website and application launches; culturally relevant Internet industry news; and mainstream Internet industry news from an African-American perspective. We also analyze emerging web trends and how they apply to web properties that target African-Americans or African-American culture.
"Nothing is assumed." That's the unofficial motto of “Tell Me More,” the new Monday-Friday talk show with host
Michel Martin. Grounded in lively interviewing and compelling storytelling, the program seeks to present
diverse new voices, cross borders, challenge conventional wisdom and discover how other people think.
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