Basketball star Dwyane Wade sued for 100 million dollars his former business partner , Richard von Houtman, for slander and libel. In February, von Houtman claimed that Wade used marijuana and steroids and told the press that Wade was not what the worldwide public thought he was. Von Houtman was interviewed by the Palm Beach Post early this year and it was there that he made these allegations. Four months after the interview was published, Wade decided to sue von Houtman for a hundred million dollars.

In the interview, von Houtman said that Wade and his friends were just a bunch of idiots. In a charity party in Chicago sometime in 2007, weed was being passed around and according to von Houtman, Wade took a hit in front of everybody. Von Houtman said that he was only sucked into doing business with Wade because the NBA star, dubbed as the new Michael Jordan, was a first-class media person. The world thought that he was a good guy, father-of-the-year, and a celebrity who had his head on his shoulder. After a year, however, Von Houtman found out that Wade was nothing like that.

In his statement, Wade said that von Houtman maligned his reputation by making false allegations of steroid and illegal drug use. Von Houtman even emailed Pat Riley, President of the Miami Heat, to pressure Wade into settling a previous lawsuit over a failed restaurant business venture. The lawsuit also includes the contention that von Houtman frequently uses the title “Baron,” falsely posing as a descendant of German royalty because of his “own grandiose vision of himself.”

Filed in the Miami-Dade Circuit Court, the focus of the lawsuit is two emails that von Houtman allegedly sent to Pat Riley. The lawsuit claims that von Houtman accused Wade and other Miami Heat players (but did not specify which players) in a March 15 email that they smoked marijuana and used cocaine and steroids. The lawsuit quotes the email letter von Houtman sent to Riley.

The email to Riley also alludes to the messy divorce Wade had with ex-wife Siohvaughn Wade, whom Wade also sued after she told the press that he gave her a sexually transmitted disease which he contracted while he was having an extramarital affair. While his wife retracted the claim not too long after making it, Wade still pressed charges against her and her lawyers. At that time, Wade said that he had no other choice but to file the suit in order to clear his name and that it had been difficult to see through the rumors, false allegations, and gossip about his personal life that had been swirling in public.

In his lawsuit, Wade vehemently denies von Houtman’s allegations with his representatives saying that Wade did not use marijuana, steroids, and other illegal drugs, as well as participate in wild sex parties which von Houtman claimed he did in another lawsuit regarding the restaurant dispute. If Wade wins this 100 million dollars lawsuit, Von Houtman may not be a “Baron” anymore.

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