Evel Knievel admitted to having scrapes with the law – the late motorcycle daredevil frequently reveled in them. Yet, even he objected to a 1970s FBI investigation to determine if he was involved in a string of beatings.

Fox News reports that, “according to the documents obtained by the Associated Press, the federal 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 in Clearwater, Fla. last November, repeatedly denied his involvement to the victims and investigators, according to the documents.

According to one phone conversation reported by the FBI, “Knievel stated that he was not responsible for what just happened to (name redacted) and that he had no control over the ‘thing.’”

Nonetheless, the Smithsonian Institution immortalized Knievel as “America’s Legendary Daredevil,” donned red, white and blue for his death-defying stunts. He had a knack for telling outrageous yarns by claiming to have been a swindler, a card thief, a safe cracker and a hold-up man.

As reported by Fox News, “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 parking lot of 20^th Century Fox.”

Saltman was the promoter of Knievel’s infamous attempt to jump Idaho’s Snake River Canyon and then authored a book about the experience, enraging Knievel by portraying him as “an alcoholic, a pill addict, an anti-Semite and an immoral person.”

To read the entire article from Fox News, link here: and to read the FBI report on Knievel, link here:

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