UP AND DOWN 17TH STREET: Suit by Nene claims ex-manager was flop

Published August 1, 2007 at midnight

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Nene, forced to defend himself last year against a lawsuit filed by his former business manager, has focused more on offense lately.

The Denver Nuggets forward has accused Joe Santos of failing to fulfill his duties as manager and personal assistant and to keep adequate financial records. He also has said Santos diverted funds for personal use.

The Brazilian big man claimed in a March lawsuit that while he earned more than $2 million a year and "thought his financial position was sound," he learned in January 2006 his net worth was actually in the red. After the startling discovery, he terminated his pact with Santos, according to the document.

"A significant part of the money earned by Nene cannot be accounted for from records managed by Santos," the lawsuit in Denver District Court stated.

Santos "categorically denies" the allegations, his lawyer, David TeSelle, wrote in an e-mail Tuesday, and has countered with slander claims against Nene.

Santos' side has said that the contention he "stole money from him (and specifically that Santos stole over $1,000,000) has been well circulated in the NBA community and has caused Santos significant and material harm" and has "cut short" his dream of becoming an NBA agent one day.

The ex-assistant, who worked for Nene between 2002 and 2006, made withdrawals or transferred money from Nene's Key Bank accounts "at the direction of" his employer, according to his response.

The complaint was filed "to deceive the public into believing this case is about Nene suing Santos, when it actually is the other way around," TeSelle said.

The story began when Santos claimed the 6-foot-11 player abruptly fired him and violated a contract they signed in 2005. Santos said Nene had agreed to pay him 6 percent of his annual revenue over a seven-year span.

In his rookie year, 2002-2003, Nene gave Santos a salary of $72,000, paid all the assistant's expenses and allowed him to live in his apartment rent-free, according to court papers. In the middle of the following season Nene agreed to raise his pay to $84,000.

Santos said he did nearly everything for Nene off the court, teaching the Sao Carlos, Brazil, native how to drive, acting as his translator, giving him English lessons, paying his bills and answering his fan mail. He helped plan hotel and "other accommodations for Nene's female guests," the suit said. Santos even bought the engagement ring for Nene's fiancee.

Nene did not dispute the ring errand. "I was playing," he said in a deposition. "I didn't have the time. And he said for me not to worry about anything else."

Santos said in the court papers he sought a contract because "Nene had expressed to me that he wanted me to be with him, he needed me to be with him. I had made a promise to him initially and to his family that I would be with him and be at his side."

If the contract had remained in place, Santos would have received $600,000 annually, on average, based on Nene's six-year, $60 million deal with the team.

Santos has argued "many new people have introduced themselves to Nene and attempted to position themselves to share financially in Nene's new contract."

The original case is in arbitration, and proceedings start next week.

Nene's attorney, Frank Schuchat, expects it to finish "before the end of the year" but he wouldn't talk about the arbitration, saying it's confidential.

As for Nene's suit against Santos, Schuchat said he believes it will go to trial.

Nene's attorneys have said Santos met their client in 2001 when he traveled with a friend to Brazil to recruit basketball talent.

"Santos may have said he was a friend of the (Nene) Hilario family," Schuchat said. "Nonsense. He introduced himself for the purpose of using him as a way to get himself into the NBA world."

In 2002 Nene was 19 years old, with limited English, and new to the United States, and his lawyers have tried to suggest he was taken advantage of. Santos at one point "directed or facilitated" the payment of a "bonus" to Nene's former agent Michael Coyne that was twice the maximum fee allowed by the NBA Players Association, according to the lawsuit.

The legal pages, meanwhile, make for interesting reading.

In his deposition, Nene, now 24, was asked about "the prophet," a reference to his minister in Brazil, and whether he pays 10 percent of his income to the religious figure and whether the "prophet" told him not to marry his then-fiancee.

Nene's lawyers said the question was a pointless invasion of privacy. Nene replied: "What I talk to my shepherd is my problem. It's private business."

James Paton and David Milstead take turns writing Up and Down 17th Street. patonj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2544

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