Evel Knievel 'intended to sue FBI'

4:10pm Monday 6th October 2008

US stunt rider Evel Knievel objected to a 1970s FBI investigation into whether he was involved in a string of beatings, documents revealed.

According to the files, the US government came close to charging Knievel, who in turn threatened to sue the FBI for alleging he was connected to a crime syndicate. Neither followed through.

Knievel, who died last November in Clearwater, Florida, repeatedly denied his involvement to both investigators and victims, according to the documents.

Knievel, immortalised in the Smithsonian Institution as America's Legendary Daredevil, donned red, white and blue for his death-defying stunts. He had a knack for outrageous yarns and claimed to have been a swindler, a card thief, a safe cracker and a hold-up man.

His most well-known run-in with the law was a 1977 attack on movie studio executive Shelly Saltman, whom the daredevil beat with a baseball bat in the car park of 20th Century Fox.

Mr Saltman promoted Knievel's infamous attempt to jump Idaho's Snake River Canyon and then wrote a book about the experience, angering Knievel by portraying him as "an alcoholic, a pill addict, an anti-Semite and an immoral person."

Knievel was sentenced to six months in jail and Saltman won a 12.75 million dollar judgment, but never collected.

Knievel's file shows investigators believed he was involved with other violent acts - a threat in Phoenix, an attack in a Kansas City hotel room and a vicious beating in San Francisco. All were allegedly carried out by Knievel associates, according to subjects quoted in the file.

Of the 202 pages of Knievel's 290-page file released to the press, some were heavily redacted, with identities, interviews and contact information excluded. The names of victims were not released, though some details of their experiences were.

One man told agents he received a threatening phone call, and shortly after was beaten by a Knievel associate who left him in hospital. The man was interviewed by the FBI, but could remember his assailant's black loafers better than his facial features.