A former NBA player has filed a lawsuit in central Indiana, accusing a Zionsville Town Council member and her husband of pressuring his dying grandmother to sign over a seven-acre family property a week before she died. The grandmother had dementia, thus she may not have been of sound mind when signing the deed. The family had lived on the property for more than 150 years.
According to WTHR 13, the plaintiffs are former NBA forward Josh McRoberts and his mother, Jennifer McRoberts. The defendants are Zionsville Town Council member Sarah Sampson, her husband Jon Sampson, and a Zionsville attorney named Michael L. Einterz. McRoberts is acting as the fiduciary of his grandmother’s estate.
His grandmother, Carolyn Pennington, died on May 6 at age 85, the lawsuit says. One week before her death, while she was hospitalized at Ascension St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis, Pennington signed a deed transferring her property, a roughly seven-acre parcel on South Ford Road that the suit says had been in her family since the 1800s, to the Sampsons for $750,000. The complaint says that the figure was well below the property’s market value.
The lawsuit alleges undue influence and constructive fraud and claims Pennington was not of sound mind when she signed the deed. The Sampsons, through their attorneys, have denied these allegations. The Town of Zionsville told WTHR the allegations against Sarah Sampson involve a private civil matter and are not related to Town operations.
What the Lawsuit Alleges Happened
According to the complaint, Carolyn Pennington had owned a seven-acre property on South Ford Road in Zionsville that the suit says had been in her family for over a century. She had repeatedly rejected attempts by her neighbors, Jon and Sarah Sampson, to purchase the land. In October 2025, Pennington moved into an assisted living facility because of her declining physical and mental health, and medical evaluations around that time reportedly found signs of dementia.
Josh McRoberts, the lawsuit claims, invested more than $1 million in 2025 to help preserve the family property. The complaint alleges that Sarah Sampson then began isolating Pennington from her relatives. On April 29, the suit says Pennington was taken to a local hospital in bad condition, and Sampson allegedly accompanied her and told providers that Pennington had no family support but had four neighbor friends who helped with her care. This is a description that the complaint says was untrue.
The next day, on April 30, attorney Michael L. Einterz drafted legal documents that Pennington signed in the hospital, deeding the property at 6810 South Ford Road to the Sampsons for $750,000.
The Sampsons have denied the allegations through their attorneys. Einterz hasn’t publicly commented on the lawsuit. The Town of Zionsville said in a statement provided to 13News that it was aware of the allegations but that the matter is a private civil case unrelated to Town business or Town operations, and that the Town had no further comment. Further, the case has prompted public calls for Sampson to resign from the Zionsville Town Council.