Watch filled size video:

Four months into a contentious and costly legal fight against Clay Bennett to return the Sonics to Seattle and restore his battered reputation, Howard Schultz surrendered.

The Starbucks CEO filed a proposition in U.S. District Court on Friday to drop his lawsuit against Bennett and the Professional Basketball Club, allowing the team to set off a new beginning in Oklahoma City in October.

Before filing his suggestion to dismiss, Schultz e-mailed his former ownership group, stating: “Unfortunately, showing that the Bennett Group lied is not enough to turn back the clock and return the Sonics. As a event, I am withdrawing the lawsuit.”

Schultz filed his suit against Bennett in continuance April 22, asking that the 2006 sale be rescinded as Bennett had purchased the team with wily claims that he would make a sincere stretch to keep the Sonics in Seattle. Schultz cited e-mails among renovated Oklahoma City owners that expressed intent to immediately relocate the team.

After Mayor Greg Nickels and the Seattle City Council accepted a $45 million buyout from Bennett in July, allowing him to break his KeyArena lease and move the team to Oklahoma City, Schultz continued with his case despite pressure from city officials and NBA commissioner David Stern to disengage.

It wasn’t until two novel contrary U.S. District Court rulings by the agency of Judge Marsha Pechman that Schultz determined the case was unwinnable.

She denied a motion filed by Schultz lawyer Richard Yarmuth to two-branched the case, which would have allowed her to render a decision on Schultz’s claims that he was duped into selling the team before hearing arguments on how she ability remedy it.

She also ruled to own the NBA to intervene in the suit.

“As a result of these developments, our legal team and I no longer believe we can be successful with this litigation,” Schultz wrote in his e-mail.

In Oklahoma City, where four moving vans arrived in the morning carrying equipment from the Furtado Center, the team’s former training facility in Seattle, Bennett declared victory.

“We are pleased to now have being accomplished to move forward,” he said in a narration end spokesman Dan Mahoney. “We look forward to an exciting future of NBA basketball in Oklahoma City.”

The team will officially announce its modern name Wednesday, though league sources indicate the team will be called the Oklahoma City Thunder.