A businessman who settled a previous lawsuit he filed against Reggie Bush says in new court papers related to another suit that someone defaced his elderly parents’ San Diego County home apparently demanding that the plaintiff help get the former USC running back’s Heisman Trophy back.
Bush, 38, resolved the first suit in 2010 with plaintiff Lloyd Lake, who had claimed he provided Bush with cash and other benefits while Bush played for the Trojans in 2004 and 2005. Lake initial case alleged breach-of-contract.
Lake, along with his parents, Roy and Barbara Gunner, who are both in their 80s, then sued Bush again in Van Nuys Superior court on Feb. 10, this time for defamation. Bush is trying to force arbitration of the second suit, abiding by what he says are the terms of the accord in the first suit requiring that an arbitrator and not a jury decide any future claims. A hearing is scheduled June 20 before Judge Valerie Salkin.
But in court papers brought Tuesday, the plaintiffs’ attorneys state that the arbitration clause only applies to contractual disputes. The same lawyers attach to their court papers an image of two sides of a wall separating a gate outside the Gunner home.
On one side of the wall someone used spray paint to scrawl “187,” possibly referring to murder under the state Penal Code, while the other side of the walls is defaced to state, “Help Reggie Bush Get His Trophy Back (epithet) Crook.”
The plaintiffs’ attorneys blame the graffiti on “unknown bad actors on behalf of or at the direction of Bush criminal” and they further state in their court papers that Bush “created a firestorm of vitriol that now has engulfed Lake’s parents.”
An attorney for Bush did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The current suit alleges that Bush defamed Lake and the Gunners with remarks he made on YouTube last September and on Twitter three months later. In the YouTube interview, Bush allegedly said, among other things, that Lake was trying to blackmail him and that Lake had a police record as long as a Cheesecake Factory menu. Both statements are untrue, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ court papers.
On Twitter, Bush allegedly referred to Lake as a “convicted felon who was in prison for rape,” an allegation which the plaintiffs’ attorneys state in their court papers was “false and without any substance.”
Lake and the Gunners have suffered severe emotional distress and financial harm, the current suit states.
In addition to winning the 2005 Heisman Trophy, Bush also won the 2005 Doak Walker and Walter Camp awards. However, an NCAA investigation of the USC football program raised allegations that he received improper benefits and Bush forfeited his Heisman Trophy.