Prosecutors Ask to Drop Charges Against a Defendant in NCAA Corruption Case
The move to dismiss the complaint Friday points to a possible lack of sufficient evidence to pursue the charges
By
Rebecca Davis O’Brien
Federal prosecutors have asked a judge to drop all criminal charges against the director of an amateur basketball program who had been charged in a wide-ranging college-basketball corruption case last fall, court filings show.
Jonathan Brad Augustine had been accused of taking part in an alleged scheme to funnel bribes from an executive at Adidas AG to the families of top high-school recruits so they would attend universities with Adidas shoe contracts.
The move to dismiss the complaint against Mr. Augustine, filed late Friday, likely indicates that prosecutors didn’t have enough evidence to pursue charges against him, people familiar with the case said.
A lawyer for Mr. Augustine didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment. Adidas, which hasn’t been charged with wrongdoing, has said it was cooperating with the investigation.
The move to dismiss charges against Mr. Augustin is the latest crack in the case for federal prosecutors, whose allegations of corruption rattled college basketball last fall, with 10 people, including assistant coaches at Division I basketball programs, financial advisers and an Adidas executive, arrested and charged in three bribery schemes.
Among other potential problems surfacing in recent days: An undercover agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who played a central role in the yearslong probe, is facing a Justice Department criminal investigation for allegedly misappropriating government money on gambling, food and drinks, The Wall Street Journal reported last week.
An FBI spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.
Defense lawyers in the Adidas-related case in which Mr. Augustine was charged filed a motion Friday arguing that government wiretaps on defendants’ phones in the case were invalid and asking U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to toss what would likely be most of the recorded calls in the matter.
According to the filing, the April 7, 2017 order to tap the cellphone of a financial adviser initially charged in the matter failed to identify the Justice Department official who had authorized the wiretap request.
Communications intercepted on that phone, following the April 7 order, were then used to support wiretap applications approved for three others charged in the case, including an aspiring sports agent, an Adidas executive and a representative for the brand.
Prosecutors have until March 9 to file responses to the motion. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment.
If Judge Kaplan rules to suppress communications from the case, the government would lose hundreds of hours of calls and texts it is relying on in part to bring its case.
Next week, Judge Kaplan will hear arguments about whether to dismiss the charges in the Adidas case. Lawyers for the defendants have argued the government is criminalizing NCAA rules violations and that the coaches were trying to help the schools, not defraud them.
“After expending enormous resources,” lawyers for defendants in one of the cases wrote in a December motion, “the Government has strained to find any legal theory…in order to transform NCAA rule violations into a conspiracy to commit federal wire fraud.”
Prosecutors have argued that the alleged schemes defrauded the schools in part by depriving them of the right to allocate scholarship funds to athletes whose NCAA eligibility hadn’t been compromised by undisclosed payments.
The move to dismiss the complaint Friday points to a possible lack of sufficient evidence to pursue the charges
By
Rebecca Davis O’Brien
Federal prosecutors have asked a judge to drop all criminal charges against the director of an amateur basketball program who had been charged in a wide-ranging college-basketball corruption case last fall, court filings show.
Jonathan Brad Augustine had been accused of taking part in an alleged scheme to funnel bribes from an executive at Adidas AG to the families of top high-school recruits so they would attend universities with Adidas shoe contracts.
The move to dismiss the complaint against Mr. Augustine, filed late Friday, likely indicates that prosecutors didn’t have enough evidence to pursue charges against him, people familiar with the case said.
A lawyer for Mr. Augustine didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment. Adidas, which hasn’t been charged with wrongdoing, has said it was cooperating with the investigation.
The move to dismiss charges against Mr. Augustin is the latest crack in the case for federal prosecutors, whose allegations of corruption rattled college basketball last fall, with 10 people, including assistant coaches at Division I basketball programs, financial advisers and an Adidas executive, arrested and charged in three bribery schemes.
Among other potential problems surfacing in recent days: An undercover agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who played a central role in the yearslong probe, is facing a Justice Department criminal investigation for allegedly misappropriating government money on gambling, food and drinks, The Wall Street Journal reported last week.
An FBI spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.
Defense lawyers in the Adidas-related case in which Mr. Augustine was charged filed a motion Friday arguing that government wiretaps on defendants’ phones in the case were invalid and asking U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to toss what would likely be most of the recorded calls in the matter.
According to the filing, the April 7, 2017 order to tap the cellphone of a financial adviser initially charged in the matter failed to identify the Justice Department official who had authorized the wiretap request.
Communications intercepted on that phone, following the April 7 order, were then used to support wiretap applications approved for three others charged in the case, including an aspiring sports agent, an Adidas executive and a representative for the brand.
Prosecutors have until March 9 to file responses to the motion. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment.
If Judge Kaplan rules to suppress communications from the case, the government would lose hundreds of hours of calls and texts it is relying on in part to bring its case.
Next week, Judge Kaplan will hear arguments about whether to dismiss the charges in the Adidas case. Lawyers for the defendants have argued the government is criminalizing NCAA rules violations and that the coaches were trying to help the schools, not defraud them.
“After expending enormous resources,” lawyers for defendants in one of the cases wrote in a December motion, “the Government has strained to find any legal theory…in order to transform NCAA rule violations into a conspiracy to commit federal wire fraud.”
Prosecutors have argued that the alleged schemes defrauded the schools in part by depriving them of the right to allocate scholarship funds to athletes whose NCAA eligibility hadn’t been compromised by undisclosed payments.
