Pablo Torre’s latest reporting has added another jolt to the Los Angeles Clippers’ salary cap circumvention scandal, this time with a $672,000 payment tied to Kawhi Leonard and a military appearance at Camp Pendleton.
On Pablo Torre Finds Out, Torre said Leonard received the money from Boingo Wireless in September 2022 in connection with an appearance at the U.S. Marine Corps base in California. According to Torre, this was the only case his investigation uncovered in which Leonard actually showed up for one of the three additional no-show arrangements he described, deals he said were worth more than $18 million.
“What we did was obtain the following document from inside Boingo’s accounting department. For an hour of meeting and greeting for the troops, Kawhi Leonard, 30 minutes from his house, got what?
Total contract value: $672,000. Date: September 1st, 2022.
Prepaid.”
Torre also said photos obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request showed Leonard meeting Marines at Camp Pendleton. He noted that the images were published not by Boingo, but by the Marine Corps Community Services Division.
The appearance reportedly included a few other familiar names. Torre said Leonard’s uncle and representative, Dennis Robertson, was there, along with Jeremy Castleberry, who was working on the Clippers’ coaching staff at the time. Boingo CEO Mike Finley was also photographed at the event.
The reporting didn’t stop there. Torre said a former Boingo employee provided evidence of an August 22, 2020 meeting between the company’s sales team and the Clippers’ representative, with a calendar entry allegedly labeled “Clippers Financial.”
He also said another document showed a separate $1.213 million Clippers agreement signed on the same day as Leonard’s sponsorship. Together with Leonard’s $672,000 deal, Torre said the total came to roughly $1.885 million.
NEW: Kawhi Leonard and a “CLIP” account got $1.9M from Boingo before a 1-hour military photo-op, internal financials and government records show.
“It is really gross,” former Boingo exec says. “Those Marines had no idea they were participating in… fraud?”
What did Kawhi know? pic.twitter.com/vZniTcPOnL
- Pablo Torre Finds Out (@pablofindsout) September 30, 2026
The Boingo details land in the middle of a much larger mess that has already hit the Clippers hard. The NBA’s investigation focused on whether Leonard’s outside sponsorship deal with former Clippers sponsor Aspiration was improperly arranged to give him money beyond his NBA contract.
That investigation ended with major penalties. The league found the Clippers had violated salary cap rules, suspended owner Steve Ballmer for one year, fined the team $30 million, and stripped the franchise of five straight future first-round picks from 2029 to 2033. Team executives were also suspended.
The Clippers and Ballmer have accepted the punishment and are looking ahead. Leonard has since been traded to the Toronto Raptors and was also fined $700,000.
Taken together, the Camp Pendleton payment is another revealing piece of a scandal built on outside money, hidden arrangements and a punishment package that already ranks among the harshest in NBA history.
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