LaMelo Ball’s manager facing eviction from Cam Newton’s old Charlotte apartment
Charlotte Hornets star LaMelo Ball’s manager owes more than $150,000 to a company partly owned by former Carolina Panthers star Cam Newton, court documents say.
Jermaine Jackson has managed Ball, the Hornets point guard and highest-paid athlete on the team, since Ball was in high school, according to a 2021 video promoting an internship under Jackson.
When Ball moved to Charlotte, so did Jackson. The two have lived in neighboring units for six years; both apartments were previously owned by Newton, the former Panthers quarterback who dabbed through the 2015 season to bring the team to its second-ever Super Bowl.
Agape Property Management Group, a Newton-family-owned company, eventually sold one unit to Ball after he signed with the Hornets. Jackson kept renting as part of a verbal agreement, Agape’s attorney says. Then, about a year ago, he stopped paying rent.
Now, Agape is trying to evict Jackson, alleging that he owes $164,700 in missed rent payments. The rent for the 3,000-square-foot apartment nestled off South Tryon Street and above Chima Steakhouse is currently $13,500 per month, the company said in court documents.
Jackson’s attorney says those are baseless claims.
During a nearly four-hour Friday hearing in Mecklenburg County small claims court, Jackson and Agape’s attorneys parsed through a muddied timeline that involved verbal agreements between Ball, Jackson and either Cam Newton or his father, Cecil Newton. Cecil Newton, a Pentecostal bishop, was present for the entire hearing but did not testify.
Agape’s attorney, Shelia Brown, said that Ball had signed a one-year lease for the two apartments in 2020. When that lease expired in 2021, everyone verbally agreed that Ball and Jackson would continue to pay rent on their respective units. When Ball bought his unit in 2024, Jackson agreed to continue to pay rent on the apartment he lived in with his family.
He paid for about a year, then stopped, Agape says.
Brown said the company “tried as much as they could to be patient” and that “it’s unfortunate that we’re going to court.”
Christi Hunoval, Jackson’s attorney, wrote in a motion to dismiss that Jackson is not the last tenant who signed a lease. A company called J4our Ventures LLC signed a lease for the unit after the first lease expired, she said.
But that lease expired in 2022; it was submitted as an exhibit but does not have a date next to the signatures.
At the courthouse Friday, Jackson told The Charlotte Observer: “LaMelo doesn’t have anything to do with this.” Jackson and Hunoval told the Observer that Jackson’s apartment needed repairs and mold treatment. That’s why he’s lagged in rent payments, he said.
North Carolina law says landlords must “make all repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep the premises in a fit and habitable condition.”
The magistrate judge is expected to rule on the smalls claims eviction case in the next few days. A second civil filing related to the rent dispute, filed in Mecklenburg Superior Court, has not yet come before a judge. The lawsuit alleges Jackson broke the rental agreement, and seeks money from him.
A motion in a separate civil lawsuit alleging Ball ran over a child’s foot outside the Spectrum Center is expected to be heard this week.
This story was originally published April 27, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "LaMelo Ball’s manager facing eviction from Cam Newton’s old Charlotte apartment."
