Knievel assault victim waiting for €68m payout

OF ALL the bones Evel Knievel broke over the years, the costliest may have been the left arm of a PR man by the name of Shelly Saltman.

He won $12.75 million (€8.7m) in damages against Knievel after the motorcycle daredevil attacked him with a baseball bat in 1977 over a book Mr Saltman had written about the showman.

With interest, the still-uncollected sum has grown to more than $100m (€68m) by Mr Saltman’s estimate.

“We are going hot and heavy after his estate,” said Mr Saltman after Knievel died on Friday aged 69. “What he tried to do to me and how it hurt my family, I’m owed that.”

The incident made headlines worldwide in 1977. Mr Saltman’s arm was shattered and is held together to this day with a steel plate.

Knievel, who broke 40 of his own bones during his stunts, served six months in jail for the assault.

Knievel had complained that Mr Saltman’s book, Evel Knievel on Tour, portrayed him as “an alcoholic, an anti-Semite and an immoral person”.