I’m used to writing about stories that involve Air Jordan’s and random violence, but never have I heard a story like this.
According to OregonLive, a 26-year-old Portland pimp named Sirgiorgiro Clardy has filed a $100 million lawsuit against Nike, claiming the shoe manufacturer is partially responsible for a brutal beating that got him a 100-year prison sentence.
Clardy claims Nike should have placed a label in his Jordan shoes warning consumers that they could be used as a dangerous weapon. He was wearing a pair when he allegedly stomped out a john who was trying to leave a Portland hotel without paying Clardy’s prostitute in June 2012.
Jurors found him guilty of second-degree assault for using his Jordans to beat the john’s face to a pulp. The man required stitches and plastic surgery on his nose.
The jury also found him guilty of robbing the john and beating the young woman he forced to work as his prostitute. She was beaten so bad she bled from the ears.
In his three-page complaint handwritten from the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton, Clardy claims that Nike, Chairman Phil Knight and other executives failed to warn consumers that the shoes could be used as a weapon to cause serious injury or death.
“Under product liability there is a certain standard of care that is required to be up-held by potentially dangerous product …” wrote Clardy, who is representing himself. “Do (sic) to the fact that these defendants named in this Tort claim failed to warn of risk or to provide an adequate warning or instruction it has caused personal injury in the likes of mental suffering.”
Clardy wrote that he’s tried to starve himself and kill himself multiple times.
He asks a Multnomah County judge to order Nike to affix warning labels to all their “potentially dangerous Nike and Jordan merchandise.”
During his two-week trial and his two-day sentencing hearing, Clardy was known for his unusual courtroom antics. He shouted expletives at the judge, prosecutors and jurors.
A psychologist declared him an anti-social psychopath who was 100 percent likely to commit violent crimes again. And Clardy disagreed so loudly — making such a scene — that he was removed from the courtroom.
In the coming days, the suit will be served to Nike, which will then have an opportunity to respond.