Leicester Bryce Stovell a solo legal practitioner in the District of Columbia, alleges that he is the father of LeBron James and that the athlete and his family have been involved in a cover-up to deny paternity by committing fraud and misrepresentation. He has filed the lawsuit on his own behalf and is asking for unspecified millions of dollars in damages.
In the complaint, filed June 23, Stovell says, “I recently have concluded that a comprehensive, sophisticated and well-funded effort might well have been underway for quite some time, perhaps beginning in its present form as early as when defendant LeBron James was in high school, to frustrate identification of his real father, and that there is a likelihood that the father in question is me.”
The lawsuit claims Stovell met James’ mother, Gloria, in a Washington bar and restaurant in 1984, where she was visiting from Ohio. She was 16 at the time, Stovell says, and they had sex only once. Stovell says he was informed by Gloria James months later that she was pregnant. He claims she told him the child would be named LeBron.
Stovell says he has been trying for three years to establish paternity. Public records show Stovell is a former government attorney with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He filed a lawsuit in 2002 against the agency, alleging racial discrimination. Federal court records show the case was settled when the commission paid him $230,000, while not admitting fault.
A call to LeBron James’ attorney, Frederick Nance of Cleveland, Ohio, was not immediately returned.
