Donald Sterling’s son Scott Sterling, who died last year, has been the subject of a few reports over the past couple of days following the Los Angeles Clippers owner’s ban from the NBA
According to a report from the Daily Mail, a friend of Scott Sterling--who reportedly died of a drug overdose in Malibu--claims that Donald Sterling “is a violent bully.”
Scott’s lifelong best friend, Phillip Scheid, said in an interview on Wednesday that Donald Sterling has always been a “racist.”
“His racism has been going on for years, everyone knew about it,” he told the paper. “Just look at his house, it’s like an old colonial house just like a white master would have in the Deep South. On his dining room table, he had a buzzer he could push with his foot so the servant could come out every time he pressed it.” He said that Sterling’s servants were usually Latino.
He also said that he used racial epithets to insult his son
“One day he told Scott off for taking too much food at the dinner table and using his hands. He said: stop being a little [expletive’ and use the cutlery.’ I’m not a racist and to hear those words shocked me, I was brought up to think everyone was equal.”
Scheid, who said he’s known Philip since he was in kindergarten, added: “The past is coming to haunt him. Obama and all the black people in the world are upset. He can’t buy himself out of this,” referring to his recent troubles with the NBA.
Later on, he said that Scott was out of control, partially because Donald allegedly abused him. Scott, he said, shot Phillip 12 times, and Phillip’s sister, Cheryl, claims that Scott caused her to fall out of a window, putting her in a wheelchair.
“I think he gets his high from power, that’s his drug. He has no regard for human life. We don’t need someone like Donald Sterling in this life,” his sister Cheryl said.
Phillip adds: ‘He’s the reason why his son is dead, why I’m disabled and my sister is in a wheelchair. Donald is a scary, nasty human being. He whipped his kids. He was a savage man.”
When Scott died a year ago, Donald Sterling and his wife released a statement, saying he fought “valiantly” with Type 1 diabetes. A report from KTLA from January 2013 went viral this week, with many people on social media sites apparently believing it happened recently.
AP update: LA NAACP head quits amid fury over Sterling honor
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The president of the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP has resigned following outrage over a decision he later reversed to give Los Angeles Clippers ownerDonald Sterling an award for promoting civil rights.
Leon Jenkins was to honor Sterling later this month but rescinded that offer Monday after a recording of racist statements by the real-estate mogul was made public last weekend.
In a letter to the national leader of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, Jenkins wrote that he resigned Thursday “to separate the Los Angeles NAACP and the NAACP from the negative exposure I have caused.”
Jenkins also has had legal problems that came into focus this week. He has been banned for years from practicing law in California because of allegations that include corruption.
A telephone message and email seeking comment after business hours from the NAACP Los Angeles chapter were not immediately returned.
Even before the recording, the decision to give Sterling a “lifetime achievement award” May 15 at the 100th anniversary celebration of the Los Angeles chapter was questioned by some civil rights activists, who cited allegations of discrimination in Sterling’s past.
The U.S. Justice Department sued Sterling in August 2006, alleging housing discrimination in the Koreatown area of Los Angeles. In November 2009, Sterling agreed to pay $2.7 million to settle allegations that he refused to rent apartments to Hispanics and blacks.
Also in 2009, the year after Jenkins was first elected president in Los Angeles, the chapter first honored Sterling with a similar achievement award.
Branches of the NAACP — there are more than 50 in California alone — operate with considerable autonomy. In a statement accompanying the resignation announcement, the national NAACP said it is “developing guidelines for its branches to help them in their award selection process.”
Jenkins said Sterling had been selected owing to his history of donating to minority charities and giving game tickets to inner-city children. The Donald T. Sterling Charitable Foundation gave $5,000 to the NAACP’s Los Angeles chapter in 2010, according to tax records. There were no further NAACP contributions in subsequent years for which records were available.
After the recording of Sterling having a private conversation with a woman became public, Jenkins backtracked.
“There is a personal, economic and social price that Mr. Sterling must pay for his attempt to turn back the clock on race relations,” he said Monday.
On Tuesday, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver banned Sterling from the league for life, fined the real estate magnate $2.5 million, and said he wanted the league’s board of governors to make Sterlingsell the team.
Sterling is the NBA’s longest-tenured owner. He is also among the league’s least successful, though in recent years the Clippers have surged. News of Jenkins’ resignation broke an hour before the Clippers tipped off against the Golden State Warriors in a first-round playoff game.
In the three games played since the news broke, the Clippers have won just one and lost two. After dropping Thursday night’s game, 100-99, in Oakland they will face the Warriors in a seventh and final game on Saturday in Los Angeles. It will determine which team advances to the second round of the post-season playoffs.
Reacting to the announcement, local activist Earl Ofari Hutchinson said the NAACP’s Los Angeles chapter needed to become “fully transparent and accountable to its members and community and not to dubious corporate donors.”
Jenkins’ legal problems date back to allegations of corruption when he was a young judge in Detroit.
In 1988, federal prosecutors charged Jenkins with extortion and racketeering conspiracy, saying he requested and received money, jewelry, a handgun and other gifts to dismiss traffic tickets and other misdemeanors. While Jenkins was acquitted after two trials, in 1991 the Michigan Supreme Court removed him as a judge.
He had “systematically and routinely sold his office and his public trust,” then-Chief Justice Michael Cavanagh said at the time.
In April, three judges with California’s State Bar Court denied Jenkins’ most recent request to practice law again. The judges lauded Jenkins’ volunteer work with the NAACP and other organizations, but they cited several instances in which they said he misrepresented his finances or other aspects of his personal life.
“Despite Jenkins’ impressive good character evidence and community service, he continues to commit errors in judgment that call into question his rehabilitation and present good moral character,” the judges wrote.
