Aubrey McClendon, who owns more than 20% of the OKC Thunder, could face up to 10 years in prison for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. McClendon is accused of "colluded with another oil and natural gas company over a five year period to avoid bidding against each other for leases in Oklahoma, with the pre-determined winner allocating part of the lease to the “loser.”
If convicted, will the other owners of OKC distance themselves or punish McClendon? He supposedly has as recently as 2014, purchased additional shares of the team from other co-owner, Jefferey Records Jr.
If the NBA chooses to discipline McClendon, it wouldn't be the first time. The NBA fined McClendon $250,000 in response to statements he made to the press shortly after they moved the Seattle SuperSonics to Oklahoma City, as his statements contradicted the organization's publicized intentions at the time. McClendon disclosed to the OKC Journal Record that the team had planned to move the team all along, despite their public stance that they'd wanted to keep the team in Seattle.
Here are McClendon's comments that resulted in a $250,000 fine:
“We didn’t buy the team to keep it in Seattle, we hoped to come here. We know it’s a little more difficult financially here in Oklahoma City, but we think it’s great for the community and if we could break even we’d be thrilled.”
“We started to look around and at that time the Sonics were going through some ownership challenges in Seattle,” McClendon told the Journal Record. “So Clay, very artfully and skillfully, put himself in the middle of those discussions and to the great amazement and surprise to everyone in Seattle, some rednecks from Oklahoma, which we’ve been called, made off with the team.”
UPDATE: Won't face jail time; died today in a car accident. Wow
UPDATE 2: This is creepy. I posted this 10 minutes after he drove his car into a wall, and I had no knowledge of his death.
Submitted March 02, 2016 at 02:36PM by cantRYAN