Chargers owner Dean Spanos, sued by his sister for financially ruinous business; the family refutes the “false accusations”

After The record sale of $ 4.65 billion of the Broncos to the Walton-Penner family, one of Denver’s AFC West rivals, the Chargers, could be next on the list of NFL deductibles to sell. This was mainly due to a longstanding legal dispute that continued this week, when the sister of current Chargers owner Dean Spanos filed a lawsuit accusing her brother of “misogynistic” and “financially ruinous” business practices, claiming that the Spanos family has no choice but to sell the team to pay off their debts.

Dea Spanos Berberian filed the lawsuit Thursday in the San Joaquin County Superior Court, as reported by ESPN, seeking sole control of the Spanos Family Trust which makes up more than a third of the Chargers’ property. (The late billionaire Alex Spanos bought the team in 1984, and his four children, including Dean and Dea, each own 15% of the club, while the family fund owns 36%.) Berberian, therefore, is looking to control a total of 51 percent of the team, making it the majority owner.

His lawsuit also requires the court to suspend and remove Dean Spanos as co-trustee, accusing both him and his brother Michael, the team’s vice president, of operating “on their deeply ingrained misogynistic attitudes and sense of right as men of the family. “The Spanos brothers, argues his cause,” deeply believe that regardless of what their parents intended and their specified wishes, men are in charge and women should shut up. “

The families of Dean, Michael and Alexis Spanos Ruhl have since refuted Berberian’s claims in a statement released to CBS Sports via Chargers special attorney Mark Fabiani: “It’s a shame our sister Dea, who clearly has no interest in continue to participate in family affairs, he has resorted to false and provocative accusations in an attempt to impose his will on the rest of the family. united in support of the wishes of our parents and grandparents, including regarding the continued ownership and operation of the Chargers. “

Alexis, Dean’s other sister, also dismissed Berberian’s allegations: “The statements made today in the court filing about my brother Dean Spanos are shockingly false,” he wrote. “Throughout this ordeal that was instigated without justification by my sister Goddess Berberian, my brother Dean was unfailingly respectful of me and my wishes. And he struggled, along with my brother Michael and me, to fulfill the wishes of the our mothers, Faye, in relation to our family and our businesses. To call Dean somehow disrespectful of the women in our family is not fair. “

Berberian says Dean’s decision to move the Chargers from San Diego to Los Angeles in 2017 undermined the trust for more than $ 358 million. He also claims that Dean hijacked $ 105 million from the trust for various debts, claiming he manipulated the trust to borrow over $ 60 million “for the costly purchase” of a private plane “that has no legitimate business justification. “. She is represented by Adam Streisand, the same attorney who helped Jeanie Buss take control of the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA.

Dean Spanos, for what it’s worth, has long insisted that he will never sell the Chargers. But Berberian, who runs the family fund with his brother as a co-trustee, has been seeking greater control within the franchise since at least last year. In March 2021, he petitioned the Los Angeles Superior Court demanding the sale of the franchise due to increased fiduciary debt. Berberian’s sons Dimitri and Lex Economou also filed a lawsuit against Dean Spanos, claiming he had secretly hijacked money from the fund.