MANHATTAN — Four NCAA assistant basketball coaches were charged with taking tens of thousands of dollars in bribes — some in Manhattan hotels — from financial advisors and agents to steer student players toward using their services once they joined the NBA, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
University of Arizona’s Emanuel “Book” Richardson, 44, Auburn’s Chuck Person, 53, Oklahoma State’s Lamont Evans, 40, and University of Southern California’s Tony Bland, 37, were all arrested Monday night and are facing up to 80 years in prison on federal bribery and conspiracy charges, federal officials said.
Several agents and advisors including Christian Dawkins, who was fired from ASM sports agency in May for running up a $42,000 Uber tab on an NBA player's credit card, were also busted.
"These coaches abused that trust placed in them by the player and their families," acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim said at a Tuesday press conference, adding that the coaches "ignored red flags" about the agents, "seeing only the green of the cash bribes heading their way.”
The FBI and federal prosecutors started using informants in 2015 to investigate “the criminal influence of money on coaches and student-athletes who participate in intercollegiate basketball governed by the NCAA,” court documents stated.
Evans took a $500 bribe at a Manhattan hotel on April 19, 2016, to help steer a potential first-round NBA pick toward a cooperating agent, prosecutors said.
Evans was also caught on a wire telling Dawkins that assistant coaches could “keep the relationship” with players, with Dawkins responding that the “head coach…ain’t willing to [take brides] 'cause they’re making too much money. And it’s too risky,” according to court papers.
Richardson met with an agent and an undercover FBI official in Manhattan in June and accepted $5,000, prosecutors said.
The bribery statutes cover representatives from programs that receive federal funding in excess of $10,000 from taking cash or gifts in excess of $5,000 to be influenced in business transactions.
NCAA rules also require players to remain amateurs and not accept an "agreement to be represented by an agent" or to take benefits from agents or prospective agents, according to its website.
Adidas “high-level executive” James Gatto was also busted for, among other things, funneling $100,000 to a high school prospect’s family to join a college sponsored by the company and then become an Adidas sponsor once he joined the NBA, according to court documents.
The coaches were all expected to be arraigned in Manhattan Federal Court Tuesday.
There was no immediate information on their lawyers.
