King has been investigated for possible connections with
organized crime. On May 20, 1957, the porch of King's house was bombed and in October of the same year, King was shot in the head and neck with a shotgun by unidentified gunmen, reportedly due to his refusal to pay $200 in monthly protection money to crime boss
Shondor Birns. In December 1957, King's house was raided by the
IRS for
evasion of $32,029 () in policy tax. Charges of
blackmail against Birns and five others were ultimately dropped in July 1958 when King declined to testify in court. The attack on King's home eventually led to the landmark Supreme Court case
Mapp v. Ohio. During a 1992
Senate investigation, King invoked the
Fifth Amendment when questioned about his connection to mobster
John Gotti. When
IBF president Robert W. Lee Sr. was indicted for racketeering in 1999, King was not indicted, nor did he testify at Lee's trial, though prosecutors reportedly "called him an unindicted co-conspirator who was the principal beneficiary of Lee's machinations." King has been involved in many fraud litigation cases with boxers. In 1982, he was sued by
Muhammad Ali for underpaying him $1.1 million for a fight with
Larry Holmes. King called in an old friend of Ali, Jeremiah Shabazz, and handed him a suitcase containing $50,000 in cash and a letter ending Ali's lawsuit against King. He asked Shabazz to visit Ali (who was in the hospital due to his failing health), get him to sign the letter, and then give Ali the $50,000. Ali signed it. The letter even gave King the right to promote any future Ali fights. According to Shabazz, "Ali was ailing by then and mumbling a lot. I guess he needed the money." Shabazz later regretted helping King. Ali's lawyer cried when he learned that Ali had ended the lawsuit without telling him. Larry Holmes has alleged that over the course of his career, King cheated him out of $10 million in fight purses, including claiming 25% of his purses as a hidden manager. Holmes says he received only $150,000 of a contracted $500,000 for his fight with
Ken Norton, and $50,000 of $200,000 for facing
Earnie Shavers, and claims King cut his purses for bouts with
Muhammad Ali,
Randall "Tex" Cobb, and
Leon Spinks, underpaying him $2 million, $700,000, and $250,000, respectively. Holmes sued King over the accounting and auditing for
the Gerry Cooney fight, charging that he was underpaid by $2 to $3 million. Holmes sued King after King deducted a $300,000 'finder's fee' from his fight purse against
Mike Tyson; Holmes settled for $150,000 and also signed a legal agreement pledging not to give any more negative information about King to reporters.
Tim Witherspoon was threatened with being blackballed if he did not sign exclusive contracts with King and his stepson Carl. Not permitted to have his own lawyer present, he signed four "contracts of servitude" (according to
Jack Newfield). One was an exclusive promotional contract with Don King, two were managerial contracts with Carl King, identical except one was "for show" that gave Carl King 33% of Witherspoon's purses and the other gave King a 50% share, more than is allowed by many boxing commissions. The fourth contract was completely blank. Other examples include Witherspoon being promised $150,000 for his fight with Larry Holmes but receiving only $52,750. King's son Carl took 50% of Witherspoon's purse, illegal under Nevada rules, and the WBC sanctioning fee was also deducted from his purse. He was forced to train at King's own training camp at Orwell, Ohio, instead of
Ali's Deer Lake camp which Ali allowed Witherspoon to use for free. For his fight with
Greg Page he received a net amount of $44,460 from his guaranteed purse of $250,000. King had deducted money for training expenses, sparring partners, fight and airplane tickets for his friends and family. Witherspoon was never paid a stipulated $100,000 for his training expenses and instead was billed $150 a day for using King's training camp. Carl King again received 50% of his purse, despite Don King Productions falsely claiming he had only been paid 33%. HBO paid King $1,700,000 for Witherspoon to fight
Frank Bruno. Witherspoon got a purse of $500,000 but received only $90,000 after King's deductions. Carl King received $275,000. In 1987, Witherspoon sued King for $25 million in damages. He eventually settled for $1 million out of court. Former undisputed World Heavyweight Boxing Champion
Mike Tyson has described King, his former promoter, as "ruthless", "deplorable", and "greedy". In 1998, Tyson sued King for $100 million, alleging that the boxing promoter had cheated him out of millions over more than a decade. The lawsuit was later settled out of court, with Tyson receiving $14 million. In 1996,
Terry Norris sued King, alleging that King had stolen money from him and conspired with his manager to underpay him for fights. The case went to trial, but King settled out of court for $7.5 million in 2003. King also acceded to Norris's demand that the settlement be made public. In 2005, King launched a $2.5 billion defamation suit against the
Walt Disney Pictures–owned
ESPN, the makers of
SportsCentury, after a documentary alleged that King had "killed, not once, but twice", threatened to break
Larry Holmes' legs, had a hospital invest in a film that was never made, cheated
Meldrick Taylor out of $1 million, and then threatened to have Taylor killed. Though the documentary repeated many claims that were already made, King said he had now had enough. King's attorney said "It was slanted to show Don in the worst way. It was one-sided from day one, Don is a strong man, but he has been hurt by this." The case was dismissed on
summary judgment with a finding that King could not show "actual malice" from the defendants, and that King had failed to prove that any of the challenged statements were false. The judgment also pointed out that the studio had tried on a number of occasions to interview King for the documentary, but he had declined; while not suggesting that King had a legal obligation to do so, the court sympathized with ESPN's circumstances on those grounds. King appealed the decision and three years later, the Second District Court of Appeals upheld the summary judgment, but disagreed with the original finding that none of the statements were false. In any case, Judge Dorian Damoorgian ruled, "Nothing in the record shows that ESPN purposefully made false statements about King in order to bolster the theme of the program or to inflict harm on King". In May 2003, King was sued by
Lennox Lewis, who wanted $385 million from the promoter, claiming King used threats to pull Tyson away from a rematch with Lewis. In early 2006,
Chris Byrd sued Don King for breach of contract, and the two eventually settled out of court under the condition that Byrd would be released from his contract with King. ==Media appearances==