BEIJING, April 11 (Xinhuanet) -- E-mails sent by Seattle SuperSonics owner Clay Bennett to team co-owners seem to reveal Bennett misled NBA commissioner David Stern on the group's plans to move the team to Oklahoma City before all means to build a new arena in Seattle were examined.

    The messages have become part of the team's dispute with the city of Seattle over the two years remaining on its KeyArena lease. Bennett is trying to buy out the lease so he can move the Sonics to his hometown for the 2008-09 season. The city claims the team must occupy the arena through 2009-10. The trial is scheduled to begin June 16.

    U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman is scheduled to hear the trial. She declined through a spokeswoman to comment on the e-mail messages, which the city first released to The Seattle Times and then to The Associated Press and others.

    The NBA's board of governors are scheduled to vote next week on Bennett's application to relocate the Sonics to Oklahoma.

    Stern fined McClendon 250,000 U.S. dollars last Aug. 23, two weeks after he told an Oklahoma City publication his group didn't buy the Sonics to keep them in Seattle. The comments by McClendon, an Oklahoma City energy tycoon and one of four original partners who bought the Sonics in July 2006 for 350 million dollars, were at odds with Stern's stated hope of keeping the Sonics in Seattle.

    When asked about the perception Bennett misled Stern last August that Sonics owners had never discussed moving the team to Oklahoma City, league spokesman Tim Frank declined to comment.

    Seattle's motion filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York seeks to enforce the city's subpoena of the financial records for the NBA and all of its teams. The city recently rejected Bennett's group offering 26.5 million dollars to settle the lease dispute and move the team after this season ends Sunday.

    (Agencies)