Rene Stutzman of the Orlando Sentinel reports: Basketball legend Julius Erving has filed a lawsuit against a security guard company and the developer of Alaqua Lakes, blaming them for the death of his 19-year-old son, who drove into a retention pond and drowned two years ago.

Cory Erving disappeared May 28, 2000, setting off a major manhunt and weeks of agony for his family. His body was found five weeks later a half-mile from his home when the Seminole County Sheriff's Office dragged a small irrigation pond and found his car at the bottom.

Investigators concluded he was doing the same thing he had often done before -- taking a shortcut home on a dirt road used by Alaqua Lakes construction crews. This time, though, investigators theorized, he didn't see the pond, maybe because of debris piled up beside the road, and plunged into the water.

Erving's home was in a neighboring subdivision, Alaqua.

The lawsuit, filed in state circuit court Tuesday, makes two major accusations:

U.S. Security Associates Inc., the company that provided security guards at the entrance of Alaqua Lakes, knew Erving was on the property that day, should never have let him on the property and, once he went missing, never told anyone that he had been there.

Developer Taylor Woodrow Communities GP didn't have adequate fences or other barricades to keep people out and failed to post warnings that its property was dangerous.

Keith Bass, president of Taylor Woodrow Homes of Florida Inc., a partner in the development company, would not comment Wednesday, saying he hadn't seen the lawsuit.

There was conflicting information, though, about what the security company knew.

"We never suspected he was on the property," Vincent Farrell, local operations manager for U.S. Security, said Wednesday.

However, a sheriff's investigator interviewed security guard Shantel Crosby, who was working at the guardhouse on the day Cory Erving disappeared said a black male she didn't know drove up in a black car, asked for permission to drive in, and she let him. She said she remembered him because his seat was reclined so far back.

Cory Erving's car -- a 1999 black Volkswagen Passat -- was found in the pond with its driver's seat fully extended.

The suit seeks unspecified damages.

Julius Erving, a former NBA All-Star with the Philadelphia 76ers and now executive vice president of the Orlando Magic, did not return phone calls. Neither did his attorney, Madison B. McClellan of Stuart.

The suit names nearly two dozen defendants, many of them affiliates of Taylor Woodrow. It also names a land-clearing company and a lake inspection company.

The lake inspection company may have been named because its employees did not spot the car in the water, although they had checked the pond for environmental and irrigation problems several days after the accident.

The pond was in an undeveloped section of Alaqua Lakes, a wooded area where brush was pushed into piles to be burned.

Jeanette Pierre, a friend of Cory's, told investigators that Cory had once taken her on a wild ride through that undeveloped area in his mother's Mercedes Benz, spinning doughnuts and veering off the road.

An accident reconstruction expert estimated his speed the day he drowned at about 35 mph.

An autopsy found a small amount of cocaine in his blood, but officials concluded it was not a factor in the accident.