The Scheme (2020) - full transcript

Our candidate for president,
Charles Lindbergh.

CHARLES LINDBERGH:
The Jewish people are pushing

the United States
into this new war.

♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS) ♪

HERMAN LEVIN:
Lindbergh wants to be
another little Hitler himself.

This is my country!

BESS LEVIN: Not anymore!

It's their country.

♪ (MUSIC INTENSIFIES) ♪

We only think we're American.

♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪



[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

announcer: The following
is a presentation

of HBO Sports.

[unsettling music]

♪ ♪

- [sniffs]

Good afternoon.

♪ ♪

Let me be very, very clear.

I have never discussed
with Christian Dawkins

paying Deandre Ayton to attend
the University of Arizona.

In fact, I never even met
or spoke to Christian Dawkins

until after Deandre
publicly announced



that he was coming
to our school.

Any reporting to the contrary
is inaccurate,

false, and defamatory.

- I'm very proud
of everything I've done

as LSU's head coach,

and I'm very proud of what
we've done at LSU.

And I--or we have never,
ever, um...

done business of any kind with,
uh--with Christian Dawkins.

♪ ♪

- I have never
been interviewed

about this subject.

- At this point, yes.

I am a convicted felon.

It is very weird for me to say
that I'm a convicted felon,

especially over basketball.

- I don't even wanna
tell my story

as much as I wanna tell
the bigger story,

in my opinion.

It's a ridiculous story.

Everyone went into it
with the right intention.

Did it get completely
fucked up?

I mean, it got fucked up to...

I mean, I...
[scoffs]

Beyond my imagination,

and I have a pretty big
imagination.

- Did I do anything wrong?

Um...

[dynamic music]

♪ ♪

- A shot fired
across the bough

of college basketball.

- Ten men, including
four assistant coaches

at top-tier programs,

arrested
on corruption charges.

- This is absolutely gonna
change the very landscape

of college basketball.

- Christian Dawkins
is a sketchy character,

wannabe agent.

Nobody trusts anybody
right now.

- Mm-hmm.

- 'Cause nobody knows
where this is going.

- I mean, basketball,
up to this point,

has been my whole life.

I've been around it probably--

like, really knowing
what it was,

probably since five years old.

And as far as I can remember,

basketball's always
pretty much been

one of the most important
things in my life.

- I've known Christian Dawkins
probably about 15 years.

First met him

when he was around
probably 10 or 11 years old.

He was part of a legacy family
in Michigan,

the Dawkins family,

and the Dawkins' name
has always been synonymous

in Michigan with basketball.

- We always pretty much
been a basketball family.

My dad was a high school
basketball coach

where I grew up at.

[intriguing music]

- Born and raised
in Saginaw, Michigan...

Uh, the number one city
in the United States

for high school basketball.

- [chuckling] Please.

- Began coaching in '96

at the number one high school
in the country,

Saginaw High School.

- He led
the Saginaw High Trojans

to back-to-back championships.

And from that point on,

I think his place in Michigan
high school basketball history

was pretty well-established.

- He played a pretty big role
in the community.

I would think that most people
would know me via him,

or because of--

our whole family,
people would know

because of his reputation
in the community.

- One thing I didn't do--
and she can quote me on this--

I didn't push my sons
or my daughter

to play basketball.

I gave them the opportunity
to decide...

- [chuckles]

- Which sport--
which sport to choose.

It just so happened
that, you know,

I was pretty good coming up
in Saginaw, playing, myself.

So I had a little bit
of legendary status

behind my name as well.

So my sons
and my daughter said--

they had to prove to me
that they were better than me,

better than their dad.

And so they took the initiative
and played basketball.

Is that correct?

- I don't know that
that's all true...

- [laughs]
- But I'll--I'll go with it.

[stirring music]

♪ ♪

- This was the gym that

I spent most of
my young adult life at.

We spent the summers,
every day here,

after school, every day.

♪ ♪

Yeah, when I was growing up,
I wanted to be, like,

a NBA All-Star.

I think everyone
has those dreams.

7th, 8th, and 9th grade,
I think I'm the shit.

I think I'm good, okay?

- Christian was good,
but Christian was stubborn.

I would give him things to do

out there
on the basketball court,

and he would take it
upon himself

to change the routine.

- I didn't make varsity
my freshmen year; I made JV.

'Cause even though
he was my dad,

he still didn't play me.

Like, it wasn't, like,
a nepotism situation at all.

JV, I was one of the best
players on the team.

I still think I'm the shit.

In my head,
I'm going to the NBA.

First-round pick.

Varsity practice,
the first year, sophomore year,

we had Draymond Green,

and we had probably--
I don't know--

a couple more
of the Division I players.

That first practice
is when I realized

I should probably start,
you know,

looking into other avenues.

- My child has always
been different.

[soft dramatic music]

- Chris is very intelligent.

When we would go on recruiting
tournaments, trips,

instead of him reading
just sports magazines,

he's reading
business magazines, you know,

which I thought was
kind of odd.

- I was young.
I was probably ten.

I started to be more
intrigued or curious

about what was going on outside
of just a basketball game

and what was going on
around the sport.

I think the pivotal moment
was when I was in--

I don't know--5th, 6th grade.

I read the book
"Sole Influence."

I remember being in class,
reading the book.

- Late 1990s, I was covering
the growing world of AAU

and basketball
and talent camps.

Nike and Adidas were having
what they called

the "shoe war"
over these players,

and it was kind of a new--
that was a new concept

at the time
of what was going on.

There was clearly
this world of sports

that had incredible influence
over how basketball,

both college and pro,
were being played.

- "Sole Influence"
is the best book

and most accurate book
I've ever read

as far as on the money
about the shit that goes on

in grassroots basketball
and in college recruiting.

It was real.

My mind was shaped
to a certain way

to understand that early.

Like, "Okay,
this is how this works."

People come into Saginaw,
they coming to get something.

It's the talent.

And the people that was
coming to get them

was usually rich white people--

white coaches, white agents,

white, you know,
business managers,

white sneaker reps--

whatever the case may be.

Yeah, I'm not knocking nobody,

but I just understood the value

of the African American
athlete,

and that's why books like
"Sole Influence"

resonated so much with me.

When I read that book,
I'm like,

"This is what I wanna do."

- Christian's always had
this business mind.

When he was 11, I remember,

we were sitting on the porch,

and I kept getting mail.

And it would be addressed
to Christian,

but when I would open it--
'cause I'm thinking,

"Who is he getting--"
and it would---

it was random people.

Open it up,
and then I would find checks.

So we called Christian in,
and we're talking to him.

He goes, "Oh, yeah.

That's for my company."

I'm like,
"What co--what company, buddy?"

[melancholy music]

- So
"Best of the Best Scouting"

was the name
of the publication I started,

and it was a scouting service
for the top players

in the state of Michigan

and also had some coverage
in the Midwest.

I knew everybody
in Michigan basketball

'cause of my dad.

Everybody who was anybody
came through that gym.

I would go and, you know,
try to make my notes

and scout as much as I thought
I could at that point.

- It was very detailed,

almost in
a frightening manner,

on who the top
middle school players were

in the state of Michigan.

People were signing up,

and nobody knew
who this guy was

that was rating and ranking
these players.

- I think I charged coaches
around 600 bucks.

College coaches.

- Division I
basketball coaches

were paying $600
for this website

this 12-year-old made
in his basement.

[chuckles]

The funniest thing was,
he ranked himself.

- I did rank myself.

I mean, it was times
I ranked myself one.

That was bad.

- And he actually had
listed himself as 6'2"

when he was, like, 14 or 15.

He's, like, 5'10" now.

- I probably shouldn't have
done that. [chuckles]

- You know, a lot of
the triggers for Christian

was growing up realizing

how important basketball was
in his household.

And, you know,

you win back-to-back
state championships,

you have a little brother
that is, you know,

revered as being one
of the next great players.

- Dorian still, to this day,
is the best friend I've had.

I was 2 years,
2 1/2 years older than him.

He was the best player on our
varsity team in middle school.

He didn't play with us,
but when he practiced,

he was the best player.

He got invited to every elite
camp you can get invited to.

He was getting letters
from UCLA

and stuff in middle school.

So he was already in the mix.

- So we went to Toledo.

It was--I think it was called

the Toledo Michigan-Ohio
Border Battle.

And DD was 14.

And we were playing against
All Ohio Red

and I think All Ohio Red
at the time

had won the last three
AAU national titles.

I think Dorian had, like,

40 points and 12 assists.

Probably 9 or 10 rebounds.

I'm like, "Wow, this boy's
gonna be special."

So they ended up beating
All Ohio Red.

And All Ohio Red coach came up
to me after the game,

and he was like,
"Coach, I saw you over there,

cheering on the side,"
you know.

"What college is that young kid
going to?"

- [laughs softly]

- And I said,
"Man, that boy is about to be

a ninth grader in high school."

He's like,
"You gotta be kidding me."

And I was like,
"No, listen, man.

He just turned 14.
That's my son."

And about a month later,

we had a tournament.

I saw the same AAU coach
on the--on the elevator.

He was like, "Hey, Coach.
How your son doing?"

I said,
"Man, you won't believe."

I said, "Man, he died
a couple weeks ago."

And, uh...

[somber music]

♪ ♪

[inhales, exhales]

- He died at a camp,
playing basketball.

He was playing with us.

I was going to my senior year.

He was going to his
freshman year.

He was by far our best player.

My dad wasn't coaching
that game

because he was in a wedding.

So just his assistant
was with us,

and none--neither one of
my parents were with us.

It was a regular day.

He played well, and then, um...

he got fouled
going to the rim.

He's at the free-throw line.

He looks at me, he goes,
"Brother, I'm so tired."

I'm just thinking it's like,
"Okay," like, you know--

you know, no big deal,

and he collapsed.

I'm thinking he had--
he's having a seizure.

And then, um...

He, um...

They were, like,
operating on him

in the--in the hospital room,

and, um,

at that point, he had
had a heart attack already.

They were trying to,
like, revive him

to the point where
he could function again.

And once they, you know,
induced him,

he just never woke back up.

♪ ♪

- He had a heart condition.
[sniffles]

[solemn music]

And...

[sniffles, breathes shakily]

No one--no one knew.

♪ ♪

- He had a rare heart disease

where, like,
his artery essentially

wasn't strong enough

to maintain
the blood flow in his heart.

He essentially had
a over--oversized heart.

[melancholy music]

♪ ♪

There is not a day that
goes by that I don't, like--

I don't think about him
in some way.

♪ ♪

Dorian was a better athlete.

I mean, he was--he was--

he was the one.

He was gonna be the next star
from Saginaw,

had he--had he lived.

♪ ♪

Listen, man.

Faith is a funny thing, right?

Like...

Part of the whole idea is,

"Believe in what
you don't really know."

Because there's no answer
that anyone could give me

that would make me be like,
"Okay, I'm cool with it."

So I had to just understand
that I didn't understand...

And try to make a positive
out of a negative.

[soft solemn music]

So when my brother
passed away,

I wanted to do something
in his memory.

I planned a high school
basketball tournament...

In conjunction with
the American Heart Association

to try to raise money
for heart disease.

And then
the rest of the money,

we used to fund
the travel team that we had,

which was originally
called Team Pride,

and when Dorian passed away,
we switched to become--

the name to become
Dorian's Pride.

My role for--
with Dorian's Pride,

I was essentially
the general manager,

so to speak.

I was probably 16.

I essentially gained
the sponsorship deals,

raised the money,

picked all the coaches
or other administrators,

picked the tournaments
we played in,

recruited most of the players.

If there was
a top-level player,

I pretty much recruited them
to the program.

- Christian,
he had an eye for talent,

but more importantly,
he would work.

Christian would just make sure
he went to all the games.

He would go to the practices.

He would find a way
to connect with family members.

And he was beating out

a lot of the top
Nike and Adidas guys

for some of the top talent
in Michigan.

- And he took a...

a very good team
and turned them into

one of the top five
AAU programs in the country.

- At the age of, like, 17,

he got Under Armour
to sponsor the team,

and it was the only
Under Armour-sponsored team,

at that time, in the Midwest.

To this day,
nobody understands or knows

how he was able to secure
an Under Armour shoe deal.

- It's marketing.

If you're Nike and you're
trying to launch a new shoe

and you need it to get
some level of visibility on it

or some level
of recognition for it,

what's the best way
to get that shoe out

or get that shoe some exposure
in Saginaw, Michigan?

You put it on
the high school team,

the high school players.

How else would
Saginaw, Michigan know about

a Nike--a new Nike shoe?

If I'm outfitting
Zion Williamson

in South Carolina
with all Adidas or all Nike,

pretty sure kids in that area
are gonna buy

Nikes and Adidas because
he's gonna be the most popular,

most visible person
in the community.

By the end, we was--
we was over six figures.

Between sneaker sponsors

and local people to sponsor it
through events,

we were definitely
over $100,000.

- And he built
strong relationships,

not just with
the shoe companies,

but college coaches.

- That, at a very young age,
put him in a position

to where he had some power
with the college coaches,

because now he had a lot
of the top players

on his AAU team.

And that's when I think
he got people's attention

in the basketball world--
not just the AAU world,

but also
the college basketball world.

[poignant music]

- At this point,
I've already got a shoe deal.

I've already got money.

It makes no sense to me
to go to school.

I knew what I wanted to do.

My first job
in the basketball business,

I got hired
as the manager and director

for a financial services
company.

And my first year there,
I signed two first-round picks.

- The Philadelphia 76ers
select Elfrid Payton

from the University
of Louisiana at Lafayette.

- I ended up signing
Elfrid Payton and Rodney Hood.

♪ ♪

Things went wrong
when I wanted to work

on the agent side
of the business.

As I had some success,

other agencies approached me
to come work for their firms,

and I decided to go
with Andy Miller.

Andy Miller is one of the best
agents that's ever lived.

Andy's definitely negotiated

over a billion dollars
in contracts,

and he definitely has had
dozens of first-round picks.

- Andy Miller is, you know,

one of the top agents
in basketball.

He's a guy that, you know,

had built a pretty impressive
agency at ASM.

- Andy just offered me--
he recruited me.

He wanted to hire me.

Andy was giving me more money.

So it was a business
situation, and it was a--

I thought a situation that
can further my career more.

[intriguing music]

- We--I was just
a agent there.

- Yeah, a agent, junior agent,

whatever you wanna call it.

- No, Christian at ASM
was a runner, you know.

He was the guy
that was out recruiting.

He was a relationship guy.

- I did agent duties.

I did deals for players.
I ran the pre-draft.

Like, what does that mean?

If you ask Andy,
who employed me,

he wouldn't have said, "Oh,
yeah, Christian's my runner."

Like, what does that even mean?

- I mean, a runner is a generic
term used in the industry

for one that goes out
and runs around and recruits.

He would, you know,
meet with the families.

He'd go to the AAU tournaments.

He would help manage
the players

once they were secured
by the agency.

- I recruited the clients.

I prepared materials
for recruiting meetings.

I did all the updates.
I did the work.

- He was sort of, you know--

a manager, I guess, would be
a nice way of calling it,

but a runner's probably
the more appropriate term

in the industry.

- Andy wasn't like,

"Oh, just go get some players
and then--"

No, it was,

"I'm training you
to be an agent."

I love Andy Miller to death,

but we were like
Whitney and Bobby.

We shouldn't have
been together.

- Christian's value
to Andy Miller was--

was, you know, irreplaceable.

You couldn't put
a value on it, you know?

Christian was able
to do all things

that Andy Miller couldn't do,

that he was too old to do,
probably,

probably too white to do.

He would do the things
that would be necessary

to foster that relationship
with the player,

to keep them with the agency.

- I literally signed
with ASM and Andy Miller

because of Christian.

Andy couldn't have recruited
me, you know what I mean?

We have
a great relationship now

because I signed with him
through Christian.

And Andy was probably my agent
in all my paperwork,

but Christian was the one
who did everything for me.

And mostly Christian
kind of shaped me,

pointed me
in the right direction

to end up where I am now.

Make no mistake about it,
he is like a mastermind

when it comes to
the basketball agency world,

and it's not up for debate

that he was great
at what he did.

- For a young guy, Christian
was incredibly well-connected.

It was no question.

21, 22 years old at the time,
and I think people thought,

"This is--this could be
the next big thing."

- No one could complain about
the actual representation.

It was the small things that
didn't get handled correctly

because Andy is like,
"I'm gonna get it done

by any means," and so am I.

And sometimes,
especially in a business

as small as the agent business,
you gotta kind of be

a little bit more politically
correct than we were.

My former company was

very upset
about the departure.

Andy informed me
that he had been notified

that my former employer

filed a complaint
with local authorities

and the NBA Players Association

about me, allegedly,

stealing $40,000 in Uber rides.

Uber-gate.

[ominous music]

♪ ♪

It got tons of media coverage.

When I seen it,
I'm like, "Oh, shit.

This is--this is damaging."

When you hear it,
it sounds disgusting,

like I was just--
at that point,

I must have been just, like,
"Driving Miss Daisy,"

just, like,
in the car all day.

I never stole the Amex card
belonging Elfrid Payton.

What happened was,

I was working
for his financial advisor.

I was essentially a part
of his financial team.

Elfrid Payton was
in the rookie-sophomore game

at All-Star Weekend.

He directs me to put his card
in my Uber account,

to get rides
when his family requested.

After I left the company
that I was with

and went over to work for Andy,

his card stayed
in my Uber account.

As I'm working
for Andy's company,

I was basically doing
most of the recruiting

for the whole company.

There was numerous people
using my Uber account.

At that time, the wrong card
was being charged.

NBA Players Association Union
reaches out.

They wanna know what's up.

Obviously, the union knew
I wasn't certified with them.

Andy, at that point,
said that he had to sever ties

because the union was on him,

and had to make stuff look
as if, like, it was a split.

♪ ♪

It was a bunch of small things
that added up

to be pretty fucking
significant.

I went too fast...

And...

it fucked us all.

[dramatic music]

Uber-gate was done in May '17.

Uber-gate sped up
what was gonna be

the inevitable anyway.

♪ ♪

- Christian wanted to start
his own sports agency.

So at that point, you know,
he came and met with me.

I took him to lunch.

I explained to him
some of the concerns

that I had with what
he was trying to accomplish.

And, um, you know, he went off
and did his own thing.

- Andy and I,
we essentially agree to

all my clients--I had maybe
a dozen clients in the NBA--

I'm gonna be their manager

as opposed to being
their agent.

And I'm gonna build up
my own business independently

as a management company,
and he'll represent my players

on its NBA team contract.

I would have handled
the day-to-day management,

facilitated their
relationships with the agent,

being Andy,
the financial advisor,

whoever that may be.

We would do marketing deals.

Essentially, I would be the
quarterback of the entire team.

I needed funding to make

the management company
a reality.

- Christian, I think,
was just overeager.

The thing was, though,
because of the way

this business was going
to have to operate,

they needed untraceable cash.

That's what you create
with these rules.

Instead of just it all
being on the up and up,

you have to hide it
because of amateurism.

[foreboding music]

♪ ♪

The NCAA thinks

you have to play
for the love of the game

and can't get paid
to play sports.

It's amateurism.

Amateurism to college athletics
is just their--their theory

that allows them to not pay
the student-athletes

other than a scholarship,
room and board.

- The issue of pay for play
will not go away.

They'll--continue to be people
that say,

"These are professionals,

and they ought to be paid
like professionals,"

and I couldn't disagree more.

I think that would
be the complete death

of college athletics.

- The NCAA puts legislation
or rules in place

that the colleges
have to follow

if you wanna be able
to participate

in their events,
in their tournaments.

- The NCAA thinks because
of this concept of amateurism,

they can stop the wheels
of capitalism

in the United States
of America.

Never gonna happen.

The way the system works, it--

you end up dealing with
unsavory people

or ridiculous circumstances.

[pensive music]

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

- Marty Blazer's
a former business manager,

financial person.

I knew him because
LaMarr Woodley,

who would sponsor our AAU team
in the beginning--

grassroots, in the beginning--
is from Saginaw.

Marty represented LaMarr.

LaMarr would fund our team,
give us donations.

- And so because LaMarr said
Marty was a good guy,

Christian felt comfortable

to begin a relationship
with Blazer,

and he knew Blazer
had some money.

- I was never close
to Marty Blazer.

I literally think
Marty Blazer's an idiot.

But I did meet Munish
through Marty.

Marty Blazer
represented players

in conjunction with Munish.

Munish was the chairman
of a bank.

He was a very
connected person.

I met Munish because he was
trying to recruit athletes,

to manage their money

and to be
their financial advisor.

- It was really hard for me
to understand how

they ever came together,
just socially.

"What do these two guys
have in common?"

But in many ways,

that was sort of the brilliance
of Christian.

- Munish and I had built
a strong relationship,

we had become partners,

and we were gonna
do our thing.

We were specifically
funding players

and families with the hope

that they would one day
sign with us

when the time came.

The competition
to sign players is a--

it's a blood sport.

The most valuable
and the most immediate return

is gonna come off of players
who are first-round picks.

There's only 30 players
every year in the entire world

who get drafted first round
and get guaranteed money.

- Everyone's trying to chase
this lottery ticket.

Only one ultimate goal
for every one of them: NBA.

And it is a very tough path
to get to.

It's very hard to make.

It's very expensive
to make the NBA now.

- Providing resources
or paying players and a family

is the cost of doing business,
basically.

[dramatic music]

The business model
of financing prospects

before they actually turn pro,
it's 100% a gamble.

You could fund a kid for years.
You could sign him.

You could fucking
do everything right.

He could fire you at the end
and go with somebody else,

and that person who's done
nothing gets everything.

That is the realities
of the representation business.

- You have these
high-probability

multimillionaires
sitting there.

People are going to try
to represent them

and get in business with them.

Nothing, no NCAA rule book
is gonna stop that.

- The first time I paid
a player was probably 2015,

as--like, actually, like,
paid someone, okay,

to sign with us.

Everyone knew
Andy was paying players.

Andy been paying players
since I was born.

This wasn't a...like, a secret.

One player can pay for ten.

So if you're talking about
spinning $50,000

to make $5 million,

I would think, you know,

people in Silicon Valley
would like those odds.

The NBA Draft Lottery in 2017
was the first time

I heard about
any investment stuff.

I was in New York City
at the Draft Lottery.

Munish said he wanted
to introduce me to Jeff,

who was this real estate mogul
who wants to get into sports.

I'm like, "Fine."

Jeff D'Angelo

is a very rich person

with relationships
and connections

in Miami, the club scene,
in New York City.

He's an Italian guy.

Looks--seems to be
mid-thirties.

Looks like he could be, like,
on "Jersey Shore" a little bit.

His personality was whatever,
but he had a lot of money.

[riveting music]

Unbeknownst to me
in the beginning,

Munish was introduced
to Jeff D'Angelo

by Marty Blazer.

Marty basically brokered
the idea of

Jeff D'Angelo being
the investment vehicle

to fund the management company.

Me, Munish, and Jeff

were the attendees
for the first meeting.

We have lunch
at the Redeye Grill.

I'm trying to explain to Jeff

how the system works,
what I do.

My plan was to use
my relationships

with high school
and grassroots programs,

try to embed myself
with them early,

get them paid, and when it is
time for them to turn pro,

I'm able to represent them.

- It was a productive meeting,
it seemed.

Seemed like we were gonna
make some progress.

I said to Munish, "This seems
too good to be true."

It's too good to be true
because the numbers

that he was willing to spend
make no financial sense.

- He said,
"I don't have a budget.

Whatever you need."

You can't recoup
whatever you need.

So it just seemed like
it was too easy,

but they invested
into Munish's fund.

And once that happened,
Munish was like,

"Listen,
it seems like bullshit,

"but they did transfer over
money to invest,

and it seems real."

- I was told it was
a million dollars.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- Wha--

- Yeah.

[dramatic string music]

♪ ♪

I have a meeting on a yacht

in Battery Park,
New York City.

♪ ♪

The yacht belonged
to Jeff D'Angelo.

I was told, like,
this is the--

the inception
of a new company.

Obviously, I'm the head of it,

and they were happy
to be in business with me.

And, um,
they wanted to celebrate.

It was Jeff, Munish Sood,

Alicia Carroll,
Munish's assistant...

Jill.

Jill Bailey was
Jeff D'Angelo's partner

in their real estate
mogul-dom.

Marty Blazer was
on that fucking boat too.

Everyone's in a festive mood.

Everyone's happy, excited.

They popping champagne.

I don't drink, so I'm like,

"I don't care about
any of that kind of stuff."

I literally was just like,
the whole time,

"Give me my money.
We roll."

- Okay.

- Yeah.

♪ ♪

- Yeah.

And we officially execute
the partnership agreement,

operating agreement
between Jeff D'Angelo,

Munish Sood, and myself,

start LOYD Management Inc.

I always called my management
company, LOYD Inc.,

stands for
"Live Out Your Dreams,"

the same company name
I've always had

from when I was doing events
back in Saginaw.

I get 50K cash that day.

- I didn't think
it was strange initially

about the 50K cash because
it was the first payment,

like a celebratory moment,
you know,

wanna show off a little bit.

We got the 50.

"Let's make sure
it's in the account, Munish."

I don't wanna fly with 50K.

There's no way I'm getting
on a plane with 50K.

I gave it
to Munish's assistant,

deposited it
in the bank account,

and we move forward.

- Now that I think back,

they just was trying
to set me up.

[uneasy music]

♪ ♪

The yacht meeting,
they made it clear

that they wanted money
to funnel

through the college coaches

and from the college coaches
to the players.

Their reason for paying
the coaches is to have

another level of protection
and hopefully,

the coaches
would steer players

towards our
management company.

They didn't want to do it

the way I was
traditionally doing it,

which was through
the players and the parents.

- So whether I get players
from the way I wanna do it

or the way he wants to do it,

as long as we have results
and we are bringing in clients,

it won't matter.

If we have success
and we sign players,

if he's my true partner,

he's not gonna give a shit
anyway.

- Yeah.

- Right.

- In reality,
the reason for them,

from their vantage point,
to pay the coaches

was to fuck us, basically,

and to get us in a situation
where we were,

"bribing" the coaches.

In reality, Jeff D'Angelo
and Jill Bailey

are undercover FBI agents.

In reality, they consider

the colleges coaches
to be public officials.

So by giving money
to a public official

in return for a favor,

that is essentially bribery.

They wanted me to use
my relationships with coaches

to execute on that vision,

to essentially set me up
to commit a felony--

or multiple felonies.

Book Richardson
is the assistant coach

at the University of Arizona.

Sean Miller is the head coach
at University of Arizona.

Book was loyal to Sean.

Arizona was definitely
more open

to getting some shit done.

- I don't know these people.

I don't wanna ruffle
any feathers.

I know I need to get
this funding in place.

So at that point,
I wasn't gonna

completely shoot down

everything I thought that,
you know,

he believed was the way
to do business.

I just wanted
to get out of there,

get the money,
and move forward.

- At the end of the day,
Christian wanted to maintain

as much of a relationship
as he could with D'Angelo

because he was funding
LOYD Management.

He was the one
who was paying the money.

This is a dream come true
for a kid like Christian.

But you gotta understand.

He'd never seen
$50,000 before.

He's got 50,000.

He's got
a partnership agreement

that has $250,000 written
on it with his name on it.

♪ ♪

They signed the agreement
and, you know,

Christian goes off
and now he starts

his new partnership
with Jeff D'Angelo

and Jill Bailey,
the FBI agents.

♪ ♪

- I learned about this story
back in 2016.

At the time, I'd been at
"The Wall Street Journal"

for about two years,
and I had been hired there

to cover New York courts
and criminal justice.

And I moved to the sports beat
in mid-2016

and sort of, like,
looking around for stories.

I think I made a joke
about how I didn't know

what I was doing in sports,

and I missed my reporting
on public corruption.

And somebody who came from
my previous beat

sort of made a joke to me

in around November
or December of 2016

that I might not be
so far afield.

And sure enough,
there was this one case

that I found involving
this guy named Marty Blazer,

and the SEC complaints
against him

were just fascinating.

- Marty had his issues
that were known

with the Securities'
investigation for

"misappropriating"
client money,

or stealing money.

- He took his clients' money
and invested it

in some film projects
that he was working on.

- You literally cannot
make this up.

- He had stole
millions of dollars

from clients of his
to make a movie or some shit.

- Um, one of them was called,
"Mafia the Movie."

[thunder booms]

[lighter clicks]
- I know who you are.

Blood on your hands represents
the lives I've taken.

[eerie music]

It's the gangster business...

[gunshot]

And I love it.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- I didn't know he was, like,
having a Ponzi scheme

to become a, um--he had
ambitions to be a movie mogul

and was fucking taking
players' money to do it.

- The SEC confronted him.

They said,
"We're gonna charge you."

- And he was being indicted
on all kinds of fraud charges,

identity theft,
securities fraud.

And when he sat down
with the U.S. attorney...

- And he said,
"Wait, wait, wait.

Don't arrest me just yet.
I can help you."

- He told them
he had some information

that could be of value perhaps,

that could provide him
some relief with his case.

- "I know about
this whole scheme

"to bribe coaches,

and I can help you
investigate this."

- The origin
of the entire case was

Marty Blazer.

- Yeah, CW-1 is Marty Blazer,

cooperating witness
number one.

So he was the first informant.

- For a lot of that,
he was on his own.

He didn't have FBI agents

alongside him
as business partners.

So in the early years of this,

it was just him going around,
meeting people

and saying, um, you know,

"Do you want some cash?"

You know,
"We can work together.

I can introduce you
to this guy."

And he's recording it himself.

It's sort of like
a freelance operation.

♪ ♪

[phone line trills]

♪ ♪

[phone line trills]

[both laugh]
- How you doing--

- And this is the genesis
on the entire case.

A three-year FBI investigation

was created by Marty Blazer,

trying to get out of trouble.

- Marty was recruiting
our players

that we was involved with
at ASM.

Marty wants to, you know,
build a relationship.

- So he's trying to get
a lower sentence,

and he's just throwing darts
against the wall of stuff

that he can bring to the table.

Munish was one of the people
he said

that was involved
with paying players.

They got enough evidence
to tap Munish's phone.

Once they do that,

they talk--hear me talking
to Munish, obviously,

because I talk to Munish
all the time.

They know of our plans.
They know I need funding.

They turn--they get to Marty.

Marty makes the introduction
to the--to the undercovers.

And then, um, June 6, 2017,

we were in a yacht
in Battery Park.

- On June 20th,
Christian set up meetings

for Merl--Merl Code
and Book Richardson

to go meet with Jeff D'Angelo.

[soft suspenseful music]

- This is only 14 days
after the yacht.

Christian is talking to Book,
and he literally tells him,

"I've hyped you up."
Right?

"This is what I think
you can get out of him."

- Book's saying,
"Hey, thanks a lot.

What can I do for you?"

And Christian says, "You don't
have to do anything for me.

"I'm Gucci.
I don't--I'm good.

I don't need anything."

And Book then gets out
of the cab,

goes into the meeting,

and he gets his $5,000
from Jeff D'Angelo.

- Oh, I know, I know, I know.

- Merl also is on the way over
to meet with the FBI.

- Merl Code is a mentor
of mine.

I met him through Andy.

Merl's working for Adidas.

Merl was a facilitator
and a relationship person,

but also someone who--
who helped us recruit.

He wasn't a equity partner,
but we were so close.

We had the resources.

I'm like, "I'll pay Merl
to open doors for me,

"help me build relationships,
maintain relationships.

"Merl's good--been good to me.

I wanna make sure
he can eat too."

- And Christian's telling him,

"Look, this is what
you need to do.

"Let D'Angelo know
that you can provide

a great value
to LOYD Management."

- And Merl says, "Well, how?
How can I do that?"

And Christian's like,

"Merl, just give them
any fucking name.

They don't know
what they're talking about."

- [laughs]

- For Merl too,
this was nothing other than

Merl telling Jeff D'Angelo
what Jeff D'Angelo

wanted to hear,
get money out of him.

And the lack of respect
that Christian exhibited

was almost immediate.

So there was really
no relationship at all,

even in the beginning of them

coming together
to form LOYD Management.

He had no interest
in bribing coaches.

He wanted the money
from the FBI

to run his sports agency.

[dramatic string music]

- All these things are being
recorded, all these calls,

these thousands of hours
of wiretaps.

'Cause it wasn't just
my phone.

Numerous phones.

There's at least one person,
if not more,

whose job is to just go in
and focus only on

monitoring those phone calls.

♪ ♪

- Mm-hmm.

So in my head, I'm like,

"He's just really that stupid.

"He doesn't understand
how the business works

"if he thinks that
it makes sense

to just go out here
and pay coaches."

I was never, ever, ever

given a player
directly from a coach.

Ever.

I never signed anyone.

If anything,
I gotta fight the coaches

to keep them from going to--
they wanna keep them in school.

They don't want
the fucking players

to leave and go to the NBA.

So I'm fighting with them.

They're not trying
to push dudes--

push dudes to the NBA.

That's a lie.

The only person who does that
is Kentucky

'cause they got
five more coming.

- Christian has the players
locked in, in theory,

before they ever get
to the school.

[clears throat]

- Jeff D'Angelo is pushing,
he's pushing, he's pushing

the whole model to pay
the coaches because it fits

the government's narrative
of bribery.

- I'm trying to tell him,

"That makes
no fucking sense, bro."

Like,
"What are you talking about?"

♪ ♪

[ominous string music]

- I'm like, "Whatever.
Okay, cool."

What I was really
trying to say was not,

"Let's just go
to the strip club."

It was basically, like,

showing him how much of a waste
of the money was.

Like, "If we're gonna
just blow some money, let's--

"we might as well just take it
and go have some fun

"because that's what's
gonna be the value

that's gonna come out of it."

I mean, I was obviously
being a degenerate by saying,

"Let's go to the strip club."

That was w--you know.

I might have been serious,
who knows?

- My investor says,
"100%, this is my money,"

essentially,
"I'ma let you do you,

but you gonna fucking do
what I tell you to do."

- It's on the phone calls.

You can hear it,
the voice of the FBI agent

having an "oh, shit" moment.

He's stuttering.
He's stammering.

You can hear the anxiety
from him.

"He's not gonna do it.
What are we gonna do now?"

Keep on pushing him.
Keep on pushing him.

- And I figured
that he was pretty adamant

about not funding me

if I didn't do what he wanted--
wanted me to do.

So at that point,
I had to make a decision.

- And the decision
I made was to

go along with his idea
that we should fund coaches,

get the coaches to understand
what was happening,

then I would just
take the money

and put it in my bank account
and keep it.

♪ ♪

And I was like,
"Listen, if you think that

this makes sense, cool."

What I did, I called Merl,

said, "Listen,
this guy's a fucking idiot."

Like, "There's nothing
that we can do to save him."

- Literally, the same day
within a couple hours,

he calls Merl Code up,
telling Merl Code,

"I ain't gonna pay coaches."

"We gonna fucking set up
these meetings.

"We're gonna tell the dude,
D'Angelo,

"that these coaches are gonna
get this amount of money.

We gonna take the money
and keep it."

- Christian is on the phone,
telling Merl,

"I tried to do things
the right way.

"These guys
won't listen to me, Merl.

"I've tried to explain it
to them multiple fucking times.

They just won't listen."

- So I tell Merl,
"Listen, line up some coaches,

and he'll give you
the 8,000 a month."

Merl's like, "Cool."

I'ma tell them,
"Spend 15, 20 minutes.

I'm not going to the meeting."

I'm not gonna be out here,

telling him to take no mo--
like all that shit.

We was both on the same page.
Like, "This is dumb."

I didn't look at it like
I'm stealing money from him

by setting up the meetings
and just keeping the money.

I looked at it like,
"I'm keeping my money

"because I'm responsible
as a partner in this company

"to fucking keep
the expenses low

and grow the profits."

- Christian and his friends,
they were hustling the FBI.

There's no question about that.

That was a matter of just
listening to the wiretaps

and hearing
what they were saying.

But really, it was because
Christian was trying

to tell this guy how
LOYD Management should be run.

- [chuckles]

- The thing was Christian
had no idea, really,

what D'Angelo was doing was
trying to build a bribery case,

a coaches' bribery case.

Merl was saying the same thing
we were saying.

"This fucking guy is stupid."

And so he's like, you know,
"You gotta be very careful

coming off the Uber stuff."

You know, obviously, he knew
what the deal was with Uber,

but he's like,
"You gotta be careful.

"The way you handle
your business,

you gotta clean your stuff up,"
which was true.

It was a fact.

[dramatic music]

I had knew someone
who was formerly at the DA.

So I'm like, "Well,
let me check with my source."

And this guy definitely--
retired DA,

worked over 20 years.

I wanted him to run
a background check

on Jeff D'Angelo
and Jill Bailey.

♪ ♪

I gave him the names,

told him to call me back
when he got some information.

He had someone
that he knew at the FBI

do a background check.

♪ ♪

Of course it comes up clean.
Everything was above board.

Everything checked out
of what they said.

So the guy who I knew
who worked for the DA

calls me back.

"They're solid."

So that's all I needed to hear
at that point.

Once we checked that out,
I was like,

"I don't really need a PI.

I'll take that
and roll with it."

We thought it was straight.
Munish thought it was straight.

♪ ♪

It was the worst thing ever.

- There came a point in time
in investigation

where everything
turned towards, really,

Christian hustling
Jeff D'Angelo

and trying to get as much money
as he could

out of the FBI,
not knowing they were the FBI,

and doing the exact opposite

of what they thought
he was doing

the entire time with the money.

And it really culminates
out in Las Vegas.

[dynamic music]

♪ ♪

- We met around
late July, 2017.

We're in Vegas.

All the coaches
in Division I basketball

are all in Vegas for
the summer evaluation period

for the grassroots basketball.

So all the coaches
were out there

to watch the young players
that are out there playing.

The whole point
of the Vegas trip

was to introduce college
coaches to Jeff D'Angelo

because he wanted
to be able to pay them.

I felt the easiest
and most efficient way

to get everybody
to knock it out,

instead of flying
all over the country,

was to just have
a meeting in Vegas,

get a room,
and have meetings in the room.

I'm thinking, you know,
a regular suite,

a suite at, you know,
a local Marriott.

I get to the hotel,
and, you know,

the suite's on
one of the top floors,

one of the best suites
they have in there.

I go in the suite.

It's huge,
and I'm thinking to myself,

"This shit is crazy."

'Cause again, I'm going back
to the numbers, like,

"What are we doing?
This makes no sense."

It was ridiculous.

It was the best--
one of the best things

that they had in there.

It's laid out,
drinks everywhere,

you know, wine, champagne,
and a living room area, bar.

It was ridiculous.
The room was crazy.

So in my head, I'm like,

"We're never gonna make money.

We've spent everything."

I wasn't even doing it
from a moral high place.

I was down for some bullshit,
but it makes no business sense.

Expenses have to recouped
no matter what--

what way you look at it,
the house has to always win,

or you don't have
a house anymore.

You lose everything.

I call Munish that day.

I'm like, "I know we checked
into everything,

but this isn't right."

And at that point, I'm like,

"Maybe they with the mafia
or some shit like that."

Like, "Jeff is Italian--"

Not to be racist
or stereotypical.

I'm like, "He's Italian.
May--he's got all this money.

Maybe he's in the mafia."

- Christian has made it clear

he's not gonna give any coaches
any money.

Christian contacts
a lot of his close friends

that are college coaches,
and he has a lot of them.

He contacts Corey Barker
from Texas Christian,

he contacts Preston Murphy
from Creighton,

Tony Bland from USC,
and others.

And he tells them,

"Look, I need you to come
and do me a favor.

We're gonna go meet
with the investors."

- We told the coaches
what was happening.

"Listen, bro,
this guy's stupid.

"He is my investor.
Just go in here.

I'ma take the money
off the table."

And what I ended up doing
was taking the money

and keeping it.

We was in Vegas.
"Let's take some of it.

Let's have some fun."

You know,
Tony definitely was aware

that we gonna go in here,

I'm gonna talk to him
about some players,

they gonna put some
money on the table,

I'm gonna take it.

He knew that.

I think it was 13K.

Tony didn't get it.
I took off the table.

[soft dramatic music]

I was in Vegas.
I just went gambling.

Sorry.

It was all kinds of money
in that suite.

It was over 100K.

Jeff D'Angelo, he had a safe.

Whenever we needed some money,

he'd go to the safe
and get the money out,

and it was real money.

It was never--it definitely
wasn't five--I mean, fuck.

We had one meeting,
there was 15K on the table.

I mean, it was--
it was a shit show.

And then fucking
Marty Blazer popped up.

And that was around the time
that I had just became aware

of the SEC stuff.

I was really hot that
he was involved or around.

There's no purpose for him
being in the meeting.

You know, Jeff is like,
"Oh, he's out here with me.

It's fine.
He's my guy."

I was just like,

"Yeah, no."

So after
the Tony Bland meeting,

it was my last meeting
of the day--of the night with

Jeff D'Angelo
and Marty Blazer.

Later on that night,

I had another meeting
with another coach

in a casino lobby.

As I'm leaving,
walking on the casino floor,

I notice Blazer and D'Angelo

are together in the casino,
gambling.

At that point,
I just, you know,

didn't think anything of it
and just left.

[tense music]

So after the Tony meeting,

we got, you know,
roughly $13,000.

You know, we just went out.
We--we partied.

We, um, did a little bit
of gambling.

It wasn't a lot.

The rest was, you know,
out at the club.

You know,
stuff happens at the club.

You throw money
and stuff like that.

And then the next morning,

the rest of the money was--
well, most of the money was

deposited in
the LOYD business account.

♪ ♪

Essentially,
the FBI funded a great party

for some coaches and myself
to just hang out.

N--
[chuckles]

No one was with us that night

thinking that
we're bribing each other.

No one.

I would think in Vegas,
we spent...

everything all in, over 100K.

- Correct, I got worried
after the Vegas trip.

- It got resolved because
Jeff was out of the picture.

- I think at the end of July,

Jeff D'Angelo just no longer
was part of the investigation,

and the explanation was that
Jeff had some family business

he had to tend to
over in Europe.

- Jeff D'Angelo's mother...

is supposedly sick in Sicily,

and he's going over to
take care of his dying mother.

I was like, "All right, cool.

Fine by me."

- At that point,

the government did not
replace him with anyone.

They just went forward
with Jill Bailey.

- I didn't wanna deal with him
anymore anyway.

Jill was better and easier
to work with.

Jill was much more convincing
and appealing

from the standpoint
of having a partner.

She just had her shit
together better.

[desolate music]

♪ ♪

September 25th,
I flew up from Atlanta.

I'm supposed to meet Jill,

and Jeff is supposed
to be back.

Supposed to have this
"come to Jesus" meeting

with everyone
about the structure

and the budgets and the, uh--

the plans for the--
for the year.

I was late for the meeting.

The meeting was at the W Hotel
in Times Square.

So I go over to the hotel,
to W.

Jill's in the--
she comes down to the lobby

to get me, to bring me up.

[dramatic music]

So we go upstairs.

I walk into the suite,

and I see two guys
I've never seen.

I'm like, "This is strange."

♪ ♪

We sit down.

I'm not saying anything

'cause I don't know
these dudes.

I'm thinking,
"Jeff is supposed to be here."

He's not there.

I start talking about
some basketball players

and maybe some games
in the NBA that just happened,

just trying to, you know,
have a normal convo

'cause I'm thinking
we're waiting for Jeff

to get there to talk about
the real business.

♪ ♪

And then Jill
pulls out her badge.

She goes, "Christian,
I'm a undercover FBI agent,

and you can save yourself."

And I'm looking at her like,

"What the fuck
are you talking about?"

So I start laughing.

She's like--like,
shaking her head like,

"No, I'm serious,"
like, "This is real."

I just said to her, like,
"Yo, you gotta be shitting me.

You're fucking lying."

At this point, in my head,

I go back to thinking about
the whole,

"This must be some
Uber-gate shit."

I'm, like,
trying to say to them,

"Listen,
the Uber thing wasn't me."

They're like, "No, we already--

Uber is the least
of our concerns."

"We already know
what the deal is there.

That's not
what we're here for."

So I'm looking at them like,

"What the fuck
are we here for then?"

And they said, "You've done
a lot of shit that's illegal."

And then I'm like,
"I don't even--"

I basically was like,
"I don't even fucking believe

this is real."

It was a white guy
and a black guy and Jill.

The white guys
pulls out a computer...

and then he starts playing
phone calls of me.

This is the fucking FBI.

So I was like, "Okay, wha--
what y'all want?"

That's when Jill was like,

"Give us Rick Pitino
and Andy Miller,

and we'll--you'll be fine."

[foreboding music]

I had multiple phones
at the time.

On one of my phones,

Sean Miller happened
to be calling me.

When my phone rings,
their phone rings.

Like, that shit was, like,
duplicated, basically.

And I'm like, "Oh, shit.

This is--
can't be a coincidence."

They have my--like, my phone
is their phone, basically.

This shit is crazy.

And I said to them--I said,
"Okay, I'ma work with y'all."

I'm thinking I can say that
and just leave out the room.

I'm stupid.

I basically tried to give them
Marty Blazer, people like that.

I'm like,
"I'll give you information

on how I feel about them."

They was like, "We already know
that you don't like Marty.

That doesn't count.
It doesn't work."

And then, "We want the--
we want people like Rick

and Andy and Sean Miller."

At that point,
I start to stand up

'cause I needed
a fucking deep breath

'cause I'm like,
"This is really real.

They're going
to really try this shit."

And so I said to them--
I stood up.

I said, like,
"What's gonna happen?"

I said, "I ca--I'm not gonna
actually go to jail

or anything like that."

And they're like,
"Well, who's to say?

It's not up to us.
It's up to the judge."

After that, I'm like,
"Oh, shit."

That's when I got, like, hot,

and fucking taking
my shirt off.

I was just so, like, hot.

I don't know how
to really describe it,

but I was like--
it was overwhelming.

Basically,
by the end of the meeting,

I'm in there
like a R&B singer,

like, shirt off
and just some jeans on.

[dramatic music]

And they were like,
"Listen, Christian,

"you gotta make a decision.

"If you gonna be with us,

"you need to start wearing
a wire now

"and start calling people now.

"We're gonna be here
all night.

You're either in or you out,
or you can get a lawyer."

So I said to them
I needed to get a lawyer.

And as soon as I said
I needed to get a lawyer...

The doors of the suite
just burst open.

[ominous music]

The team that they send
to arrest criminals

that you would see on TV

or you seen in movies,
they all bust out the doors

and they've got real guns
pointed in my face.

At this point, I'm like,

"Well, they just gonna
fucking kill me," like,

"It's over.
I died 'cause of basketball."

It was multiple machine guns
in my face.

I just put my head down
'cause I'm like,

"You know, I don't wanna
see them shoot me."

I was beyond terrified

because I couldn't even
comprehend what was going on.

That morning,
I'm leaving Atlanta,

thinking that we're having
a company meeting.

That afternoon,
I have machine guns in my face.

At that point,
they put the handcuffs on me.

And from there,
they basically was like,

"Listen,
you can talk to your lawyer,

"and we can make
some kind of deal

and try to get you
out of this."

And at that point,
it kind of was what it was.

[unsettling music]

What happens next,
they was like,

"We gotta take you
closer to the courthouse,

"and it's gonna be--you gonna
be in a federal holding cell,

"where, like, you know,
some of the people

that are in lockdown and other
situations like that are at."

So I'm like, "Okay,
that doesn't sound good."

♪ ♪

So when I--when I go through
the process

of getting registered,
basically,

I'm in a room by myself
because they're trying to get

my situation ready
in the cell.

And then they fingerprinted me
and did their whole thing,

and then they take me
to the cell.

Where the cell was,
was, like, a long hallway.

When I went down--when I got
there, it was loud.

Like, you know, people were

talking and screaming
and shit.

[ominous string music]

So I'm like, "Okay,
this is gonna be fun."

They take me to the cell.

This is when I knew
shit was gonna be crazy, okay?

[chuckling]
Um...

The dude I'm in a cell with...

The last thing I heard him say
to the guard,

"I'ma fucking kill you."

So in my head--

again, I've never been
in no situation like this.

I'm like, "If he gonna
fucking kill the guard,

"I'm--this shit is over with
for me.

I might as well
cancel Christmas."

[uneasy music]

I'm like, "I'm just
not gonna say nothing."

Maybe, like, a hour go by
of me just being quiet...

and eventually, he goes,

"What are you here for?"

[sighs]
So I told him.

He's like, "Yeah, no,
you here for something else.

"They didn't fucking
put you in here or arrest you

for paying
some basketball players."

I'm like, "I swear, bro."

I'm a curious person,

so I started to have
questions,

and I was like, you know,

"Who are some of the people
that's around?"

And then he was like,
"El Chapo's upstairs."

"What?"

And I'm thinking,
"Okay, how could I be

in the same vicinity
as El Chapo?"

This cannot be real life
right now.

No disrespect to El Chapo
and what they got going on,

but now I gotta get
the fuck out of here.

[solemn music]

And then maybe around
5:00 that morning,

they came to pick me up,

and I end up waiting
with the agents

to see the judge
to do arraignment.

- No.

Dude, this was some
third-world shit.

No phone call.

They did--I didn't even get
offered to get a phone call.

- When I got out, they--
I called--

I had a public defender

'cause I couldn't talk
to any lawyer.

So I had a public defender.

And when I got out,
I asked her.

I used her phone to, one,

see who else got arrested,
and, two, call my mom.

- Hailee,
um, that's my daughter.

She said, "Mommy,
Christian's on the phone.

He can talk to you."

- The call to my mom
was the first time I had cried,

and the reason why
I cried was because

my sister was on the phone too,
and my sister can make me cry.

And my mom basically is like,

"Stop fucking crying."

- So I told him, I said,
"Hey, Christian."

Um, "Did you kill someone?"

- "Did you hurt somebody?"
"No."

- And I said,
"Did you rape someone?"

He said, "No."

- "Did you do anything
to anybody?"

"No."

- "Did you steal from someone?"
- "No."

- I said, "Excuse my language.

Suck it the fuck up
and you're coming home."

- "Don't let nobody see you
crying in here,

"go in there
in front of that judge,

plead not guilty,
and come home."

- And we hung up,

and he was home
later on that night.

[camera shutters clicking]

- Good afternoon.
My name is Joon Kim.

I'm the acting
United States attorney

for the Southern District
of New York.

Today, we announce charges
of fraud and corruption

in the world of
college basketball.

- I learned Christian
was arrested.

I was sitting in my office,

and I get a phone call
from Christian's father.

And he's just screaming
in the phone,

"Turn on ESPN!
You're not gonna believe it."

And I've known Lou
for a long time,

and I've never heard Lou
in such a state of panic.

So I turned on ESPN.

I was watching
the press conference,

and I saw the diagram
and I see Christian's name.

And I didn't even know
at that point

what it was about.

- Coaches at some
of the nation's top programs

soliciting and accepting
cash bribes.

Managers and financial advisors

circling blue-chip prospects
like coyotes.

Dawkins was
an athlete recruiter

for a sports agency

who was trying
to start his own

sports management business.

- You know, at the time,

the press conference
was pretty impressive.

You know,
I was thinking, "Wow.

"They're gonna
do something here.

They're gonna--they're gonna
really get some people."

- The madness of
college basketball

went well beyond
the big dance in March.

Month after month,

the defendants exploited
the hoop dreams

of student-athletes
around the country,

allegedly treating them
as little more

than opportunities
to enrich themselves

through bribery
and fraud schemes.

- First time I heard about it
was, like,

a quiet September morning.

Southern District of New York
announces

the arrest of ten men,

including four active college
basketball coaches

for bribery and fraud,

and that was a bombshell.

- After I was arrested,
Book Richardson was arrested,

Lamont Evans was arrested,
Tony Bland was arrested,

Merl Code was arrested,
Jim Gatto was arrested,

Munish Sood was arrested.

I mean, ran up in they house,
kicked they doors down.

Someone was in the shower,
pulled them out the shower,

you know, arrested them

in front of they kids,
they family.

- And so you said,
"How big could this get

if this is what they're doing?"

- The FBI is charging
ten people

with fraud and corruption
in college basketball.

- Well, this extensive
FBI investigation

might as well be
right out of a movie:

wiretaps, undercover agents,
and informants.

- The FBI is involved,

and they're going after
everybody.

- I think it'll be
the biggest scandal

in the history
of college basketball.

It could be one of
the biggest scandals

we've ever seen in sports.

- You know, probably
the one thing I remember

from the press conference
more than anything was,

"We got your playbook."

- Today's arrests should serve
as a warning to others

choosing to conduct business
this way

in the world
of college athletics.

We have your playbook.

- I knew having been
a prosecutor,

you're not gonna make
a statement like that

unless you probably got
something to back it up.

- I mean, the Southern
District of New York

is known for, you know,
bringing the high pro--

highest profile cases
that exist in America.

They don't--they don't
charge anything

unless politically,

they're gonna make
an example of somebody.

- You know, the Southern
District of New York,

they call themselves--
or the joke is that they're,

"the Sovereign District
of New York," you know?

Even if cases aren't
specifically in Manhattan,

they sort of see the world
as their canvas.

- They don't lose.

They don't make mistakes.

These are very,
very smart people.

- They wanted to make
an example of what

they thought was the problem
with college basketball.

- Christian was--was portrayed

as sort of the centerpiece
of this whole thing.

He was the one they went after
as, "Here's our kingpin."

- He was somebody
that the government

could point a finger at
and say, "See?

"That's what
we're talking about.

"This is what's wrong
with college basketball--

that guy, Christian Dawkins."

- It's kind of crazy when
you think of it like that,

like, everything
was centered around me

like I invented all this shit.

The paying players has been
going on for a hundred years.

Okay?

So that's not something
that's brand new.

- Anybody who knows anything
about college basketball

or this world knows if they are
gonna arrest four guys,

they could arrest 40,
they could arrest 80.

If you have
the right middle person,

the right AAU coach,
the right runner,

the right whatever who says,
"I'll tell you everything,

"and I'll make a plea deal

that can implicate
who knows how many people."

[soft dramatic music]

- My initial conversation with
the U.S. Attorney's office

was about Rick Pitino,
specifically.

- Rick's name--
when they arrested me,

they said to me very clearly
in no uncertain terms,

"We want you to give us
Rick Pitino."

They gave me the opportunity
to work with them,

wear a wire, fucking not have
to go to prison,

no--not even be charged,

and just give them
Pitino and Andy.

- Their interest
in Christian cooperating was...

Tha--I think was
the whole plan

of how they were gonna
bring things down

and how this case
was gonna blow up into

what they professed it would be
at the press conference.

- We're pretty confident.

- You know, my understanding
of the conviction rate

with the Southern District
of New York is,

you know, 95 to 97%.

- I was fully prepared
to fight.

We admitted from day one,
we did--we paid the players.

There's no point
in hiding that.

It's not illegal.

There's no law in the world
that says

breaking a NCAA rule
is a federal felony.

There's no law that says that.

They twisted the law
to make it fit.

- When Christian refused
to cooperate,

they became laser-focused
on punishing him.

[menacing music]

- I was charged
with wire fraud,

honest services fraud,

conspiracy to commit
wire fraud.

I think we had
money laundering

at one point on there.

I was charged with bribery.
Dude, it was so much shit.

My maximum sentence
was 200 years.

I was like, "Yeah, no,
this can't be real."

- [chuckles]
I'll put it like this.

After we were charged,
I go to the ATM.

I put my ATM card
in the machine, and it ate it.

Fucking card
didn't come back out.

I never seen nothing
like that before.

So that's really
what I got by with,

was money I just had
around my house.

All my bank accounts
were irrelevant.

I had, you know, at home,

close to 90,000.

- Yeah, I had saved up money.

[laughing]

I had some money saved,

and luckily, I did.

If I didn't have that,

I would have been
fucking screwed.

- All of it--most of
that money was FBI money.

If it wasn't for them
having that dumbass idea

to pay coaches,
I wouldn't have any money

to pay my attorneys
and to live off of.

I would have had nothing.

[soft dramatic music]

- As I'm looking at this
evidence with Christian,

it's very difficult to do
because there's so much of it.

So I learned then that
they had wiretapped his phone,

not for, like, a day...

[laughs]
For, like, three months.

So I said to Christian,

"Would you be concerned
about anything

"that they would hear you
talking about on your phone

"for the periods of time

of June 2017
through September?"

And he said, "If they got
my phone, I'm fucked."

[laughs]

You know, so at that point,

I realized this was probably
gonna be a tough case.

You know, we made a decision
that no matter how painful,

no matter how expensive,
we were gonna have a trial,

two of them, if necessary,
and we did.

♪ ♪

- The first trial was
for defrauding universities.

It was a fraud trial.

- It was a two-count
wire fraud case,

and it was honest--
honest services as well,

um, that the schools were
victimized by the conduct.

And Louisville
was professed to be

the, uh--the victim
in that case.

- Codefendants in that case
were Merl Code and Jim Gatto.

Jim Gatto was the person

who did the deals
for NBA players with Adidas.

Jim Gatto was
Merl Code's boss.

Jim Gatto's
a unbelievable person,

obviously,
was loyal to Adidas,

had been at Adidas
for 20-something years,

and was trying to help
one of his flagship schools.

- The first case
was a slam dunk,

factual case
for the government.

There was no way
we could defend factually

what happened
with Christian Dawkins

and Bowen family.

- I had a relationship
with Brian Bowen Jr.

and his family dating back to
when he was in middle school.

He played for
my Dorian's Pride AAU Team.

I was providing benefits,
or resources,

to the family off and on

from early
in his high school career.

Brian Bowen's father
100% made it very clear to me

he's not going to school
if he doesn't get paid.

And when he made the decision
to go to Louisville,

at that point, yes,
I did step in and try to,

um, create some level
of assistance.

The family's supposed
to receive $100,000.

- Brian Bowen's father,
under oath, federal court,

said, "Oklahoma State:

"150,000, car, a house.

Creighton: $100,000."

Oregon was
a astronomical number.

Arizona--hundreds--tens,

hundreds,
thousand dollars out there.

Some of these schools
aren't even

big-time basketball programs.

Creighton...

This is what
these kids are worth.

- The University
of Louisville's Rick Pitino,

one of the winningest coaches
in college basketball history,

effectively fired today
amid an FBI investigation

that has exposed
what looks like

the dark underbelly
of the NCAA.

- The only reason why
the FBI even knows

or could prove anything
was because fucking...

Adidas was late on the money.

I had to figure out a way
to get the father

what was promised him.

And I went to Jeff D'Angelo,

and he was like,
"I'll put up the money."

And at that point, obviously,
that's FBI money.

They knew what was happening.
They had a paper trail.

And they wrapped everything
into it that way.

- If Adidas just does
the shit quicker

or if Brian Sr.
doesn't need the money

that bad at that time,

there's no way
they would have even known.

It just was a bunch
of bad luck.

- The defense never denied
that the money got paid out.

- And there's no way
to deny that because

there were
cooperating witnesses

who actually made
the money transfer.

They gave the guy the money.

- Muni Sood cooperated
with the government,

provided testimony
against Christian Dawkins

and Merl Code.

- They call back the verdict.

We lose.

[solemn music]

- He got six months,
was the sentence,

which we appealed,

which allowed him
to be out on an appeal bond,

awaiting a decision
to see if we have a right

to a new trial because
it was such a unique case

that had never been
really tried before

in the history of the country.

- A legal precedent
has been set.

In theory, they're saying,

"If you cause an athlete
to no longer be eligible

for his scholarship,
you've defrauded a school,"

which is a felony now,
a federal felony.

Now that could mean any booster

that gives any money
to an athlete.

That could be
the local pizza shop,

when the kid comes in
and he's the star quarterback,

and say,
"Here's a free slice of pizza."

You've now made
these players ineligible.

Have you just defrauded
this massive university?

I don't know.

- If was giving that same money
to a professional player,

it's totally fine.

But if I was giving that money
to someone

who was in high school,

who just didn't
go to college,

who just was like,
"I'm not going to the NCAA.

I'ma go to the D-League,"
it's totally fine.

But just because someone wants
to play basketball in college,

it's wire fraud?

It does--that doesn't even
make common sense to me.

- But it's also crazy
when Louisville

pretty undeniably
is one of the dirtiest,

most noncompliant schools

in the history
of college basketball.

- Yeah, this was not
Louisville's first

NCAA infractions rodeo.

They've been down this path
a few times.

- I am beyond pissed off
that government

is implying that
we victimized a university,

and in my particular case,

a university that just
had came off of a...

whore scandal on campus.

- The University of Louisville
men's basketball team

isn't commenting
on allegations

that the team provided escorts
to have sex with recruits.

- Tina Powell says
she brought girls

to perform
at Billy Minardi Hall

22 times
between 2010 and 2014.

- That, obviously, is frowned
upon by the NCAA rule book.

- No one got fired.

Fuck charged and with felonies.

No one even got
a slap on the wrist.

Yeah, you take down
a national championship banner.

Okay, they still won
a national championship, bro.

If you can survive
a whore scandal,

you can survive anything.

If this was Cleveland State,

the fucking whole team
would be done.

This was--if this was
Western Michigan,

the whole program
would be out of here.

And they would try to--
the NCAA would try to

save face by punishing
someone like that,

but they're not gonna
fucking punish the real schools

'cause they make too much money
off of them.

[soft piano music]

These are sponsorship deals

that the different
shoe companies have

with particular colleges.

You have UCLA
and Under Armour,

there's $280 million,
which is ridiculous.

Ohio State,
football school, mainly,

but also is a pretty big-time
basketball program.

They bringing in
$252 million with Nike.

Texas and Nike,

they're bringing in
$250 million.

Kansas and Adidas...

Kansas was, obviously,
one of the schools involved

in our trial who was allegedly
a victim of getting

really good players
from Adidas,

who was giving them
$191 million.

Michigan and Nike,
they're at $173 million.

And then you have Louisville.

Adidas gave Louisville
$160 million,

and we allegedly
defrauded them with Adidas

out of a scholarship valued--
I don't know--a couple--

I mean, a hundred grand or so.

So that's the crime
that we committed.

- Louisville takes
$165 million from Adidas

and then pretends
they don't work for Adidas.

Someone gives you $165 million,
you work for them.

That's how it is.

You know, you can't
possibly be the victim

of someone giving you
$165 million

and great basketball players
for your team.

[foreboding music]

- Second trial was derivative
of pretty much just bribery.

Everything derived
out of the bribery

of Christian giving
coaches money.

And the whole real premise
of that second case

was that by doing so,
the schools were victimized

by Christian and the coaches
for fraud, basically,

that the schools were harmed
as a result of that

interaction between
Christian and the coaches.

Our defense was a lot
of what the government

said happened did not happen,

and we believed
we had evidence of that.

♪ ♪

Chronologically,
we have these phone calls.

We started seeing
a different picture

that wasn't necessarily being
portrayed by the government.

And I call Christian up,
and I'm saying,

"Dude, is--
am I hearing this right?

"You literally told
the FBI agent,

"who you didn't know
was an FBI agent,

"that you wanted to take
the money

and not give it to the coaches,
but go get some hookers"?

"I know.
I--I shouldn't have said that."

I said,
"It's good you said that."

Because we felt that if that
played out in open court,

we had the potential
of embarrassment.

And one thing we knew about

the Southern District
of New York,

they don't like embarrassing.

[dramatic music]

- When you looked at it,
you said,

"We're--we have the wrong guys
on trial."

Marty Blazer is a person
who stole money

testifying against two guys
who gave people money.

We sat there and watched
Marty Blazer testify.

I believe it took half a day
to go through

all of the various crimes,
schemes, and lies

that Marty Blazer
was involved with.

- Marty Blazer's testimony
was four days long.

It was a whole week
of nothing but,

"I wore recordings.
This is what Christian did."

It was nothing but Marty Blazer

doing everything
he possibly could

to show the government
that he substantially complied,

right, as part of
his cooperation agreement--

that's the language in it--

and for that substantial
compliance and assistance

in seeing Christian Dawkins
convicted and prosecuted,

that he then could avoid
going to prison.

I mean, is that a fair system?
I would say probably not.

- Marty Blazer should--
yeah, he should--

probably should go to prison.

He should probably go.

He's stealing that much money
to do a movie,

and it was a shit movie
on top of that?

That--
you should go to prison, bro.

Marty Blazer's an idiot.

- The biggest surprise for me

was finding the conduct
of the FBI.

- I found out
that the FBI agents

were accused of--
or alleged to have stole money

from the investigation

via the "The Wall Street
Journal" article.

- Somebody involved

gave me kind of a nudge
to look into,

you know, something
had happened in Las Vegas.

I was told to pay attention
to some court filings

that were coming out
that would

make it clear that there had
been some FBI misconduct.

In the middle
of this investigation--

it's a heated investigation--
shortly after,

they're all in Las Vegas doing
these meetings with coaches.

This one undercover
just sort of was like,

"I have to go away
for a month."

♪ ♪

You know, you can't always
read too much

into things like that,
but when UC-1 disappears,

and they even
go out of their way to

say that this person
left in the middle,

it was sort of bizarre.

You know, I'm able to contact
people in law enforcement,

and we reported that
this one FBI agent,

Jeff D'Angelo,
who's UC-1 in the complaint,

had been caught
misappropriating

government money in--
on his trip to Las Vegas.

It later emerged in the court
hearing that there were

more than one FBI agents
who got in trouble for this.

Apparently, what happens
when you send

a bunch of dudes to Las Vegas

with envelopes of cash
is, like, not great.

And since then,
there's been a full-blown

DOJ investigation into what
went wrong with this.

♪ ♪

In the broader scheme
of things, it just--

it sort of casts...

a shadow on the investigation.

I mean, who are the good guys
here, you know?

- The reason why nobody knows
what Jeff D'Angelo

and the other members
of the investigative team did

was because it was covered up,
it was--

I mean, we knew
that something happened,

but we don't know
what happened,

we don't know how it happened,

we don't know
how much happened.

We don't have any details

besides the fact
that something happened.

- Did the jury ever find out
that the FBI

was misusing or stealing

government funds,
taxpayer dollars?

They didn't.

- No FBI agent spoke at trial

or were even mentioned
in front of the jury,

as far as I remember.

- The jury in either trial

never was aware
of any alleged misconduct

by any of the FBI agents.

- I subpoenaed four FBI agents,

the four that were
most principally involved

in the case,
and all subpoenas were denied.

If Jeff D'Angelo walked
through here right now,

I wouldn't even know
if it was a FBI agent

or a sound guy.

We had no idea
who Jeff D'Angelo was.

Never saw him before.
Don't know his real name.

To this day,
we don't know who he is.

- I don't know
any investigation

where the investigation leader

is not there
to take the witness stand.

- He was the primary
investigative officer.

He wasn't some guy hiding
in a bush with a microphone.

This was the guy
that was on the yacht

giving Christian Dawkins
the money

to go out
and start LOYD Management,

so he was
the central character

of this entire investigation,

was this particular FBI agent,

and he never came
in the courtroom to testify.

- They had to believe
that Marty Blazer,

a known fraudster
at this point,

was more credible for the jury

than their lead FBI agent,
Jeff D'Angelo.

I would feel like
it's just fair

that if someone is in charge
of leading an investigation

and there's been
alleged misconduct,

that we should know
what they did,

whether that was a small thing
or a huge thing.

Like, it shouldn't be
a situation where it's like,

"Fuck off,
you don't need to know."

By definition, if some--
if no one knows,

someone's preventing
that information

from being out there.

That's literally
what a cover-up is.

I mean, it has to--
something's being covered up.

There's no--
I don't know what happened,

and I was in
the fucking case.

- You know,
that's the basic thing.

We are, the taxpayers,
you know, paid for everything.

The yacht, all the alcohol--

God knows what gambling

they were doing
out in Las Vegas.

Hotel suites in Las Vegas.

$4,000, $5,000-a-night suite.

It was just--
it's mind-boggling to imagine

that the taxpayers in America

foot the bill
for something this ridiculous.

The whole thing
was manufactured, right?

The whole thing was
arguably entrapment, right?

There's a point in time
where Christian made it clear

he didn't want to do
what he was being asked to do,

which is what
he was charged with.

♪ ♪

Christian Dawkins doesn't have
the name recognition,

the resources,

the, quite frankly, the money

to scare the DOJ.

But if you charge these major
head coaches who have--

who are making
$3, $4, $5 million a year

and they're all gonna
fight this shit,

and you have
improper things going on

with your investigative team,

you probably can't
fucking keep that hidden.

- I subpoenaed Sean Miller,
the head coach of Arizona.

I subpoenaed Will Wade,

the head coach
of Louisiana State University.

You know, I wonder
what would've happened

had those folks testified.

I think our case would've been
a little stronger.

- All of college sports fans
wanted to see Rick Pitino

on the stand
or Sean Miller on the stand

or Will Wade on the stand.

That's not how it worked,
and those guys didn't have--

they weren't charged
with any crimes.

They weren't--

they weren't accused
of any wrongdoing.

- Lack of evidence
was not the reason

that coaches were not charged.

♪ ♪

When Sean Miller
had his press conference,

I literally thought of Book,
and I was like, shit,

I mean, Sean should have
his own, like,

movie agent or some shit,
or a manager.

Like, he should be an actor.

That was a really high-level--

I was convinced, honestly.

- Contrary to what has been
written this past week,

we do our very best
to run a clean program

at the University of Arizona.

I have never knowingly
violated NCAA rules

while serving as head coach
of this great program.

I have never paid a recruit
or prospect or their family

or representative
to come to Arizona.

I never have and I never will.

I have never arranged
or directed payment

or any improper benefits
to a recruit or prospect

or their family
or representative,

and I never will.

- If you want to know
my opinion,

when Sean Miller had
his press conference

and said has a player from
Arizona ever received money

or did he know anything
about a player from Arizona

receiving money, did he lie?

Yeah, that wasn't true.

♪ ♪

- Book and I are just
essentially speaking about

myself wanting to recruit
Deandre Ayton.

Obviously,
he was already on campus.

Book was one of his coaches.

They have access to him
every day,

so I had had conversations
with Book about Deandre

and just, you know, myself
getting in front of him,

hopefully having a shot
at representing him one day.

I'm being told

that Sean is the one

who is financing
the Deandre situation.

- I mean, did Sean Miller
pay players?

I think, you know,
if you can't believe

the head assistant coach
on a wiretap,

who doesn't know
he's being recorded,

in his truest of moments,
talking with his buddy,

and he's saying that
Sean Miller's paying players,

you'd have to be a really,
really die-hard Arizona fan...

[laughing]
To believe that he's not.

- If anyone's gonna say
Book is a cheater

and Book was a liar
and Book paid players,

then there's no way you can
separate Sean from it.

- I could care less if these
guys are paying players.

I don't have anything personal
against Sean Miller

or Will Wade,
I don't know these guys,

but I think that Christian's
relationship with them

was very clear
from those wiretap phone calls

by the way that they're having
conversation with each other.

All right?
Not very formal.

- They do have wiretaps
of head coaches talking

about recruiting,
and we never heard any of them.

The government fought every
attempt by defense attorneys

in both trials
to get those calls

admitted and played in court.

They never came out.

- You know, the government
knew those calls existed.

They heard what were on
those phone calls.

The judge felt
it was not relevant

to the issues before the court.

- So the names that you know,

fans know,
we didn't hear from them.

- Very comfortable
with each other.

They had worked together
on a lot of different things.

- The player
in that particular situation

was Nassir Little.

Sean wanted Nassir
really badly.

He knew I had a relationship

with the grassroots coaches,
who at that time,

I think we all were
under the impression

that they kind of had
the juice with the situation.

I basically told him

that I think it's gonna come
down to Miami and Arizona,

and what I think
needed to happen

for the kid to come
to Arizona.

- Yeah, it was no question,

that conversation,
all about money, I think.

I mean,
from my interpretation--

maybe Sean, you know, speaks
a different language than me,

but I'm pretty sure that we can
all agree that that's--

we was talking about what needed
to happen to get it done.

- I--or we, have never,
ever done business

of any kind
with Christian Dawkins.

- [laughing]

- I think the only way
you can interpret someone

in a head coaching position

saying they made
a strong-ass offer--

they ain't talking about
a scholarship offer, bro.

100% talking about money.

Just the audacity--
I mean, just--

you gotta take your hat off
to him, man.

He not only didn't
get charged for anything,

not only did the government
have all this--

this information and evidence,

and nothing was happening
on a criminal level,

he also basically just said
fuck you to the NCAA

and to the university
he worked for.

- Head Coach Will Wade
has requested reinstatement

from his indefinite suspension

while still refusing
to meet with the school.

- Man, that was some G shit.

And he said fuck you
to the people

who wasn't with him.

And he still got
to keep his job

and make millions of dollars.

It's, like, the perfect storm.
This is the life.

Fucking, they're paying him
a lot of money

to win games, bro.

The fuck is he supposed
to do, lose?

Will Wade is definitely
a fucking gangster

for what he did.

There's no fucking way
I'm gonna believe

that people at that level
of sophistication

is gonna get on national TV

knowing that there's
a smoking gun laying out there

and be so confident in saying,

"I don't know shit.
I didn't do shit.

I don't know
anybody involved."

There had to be somebody
to give them

some level of insurances.

They wouldn't roll the dice
like that.

No one fucks with the FBI
like that.

No one's that crazy.

- And this now completes
my statement on this matter.

- From the start
of this whole case,

the whole idea was
to bring in coaches,

and they could have blown
the whole fucking thing up

if they wanted to,
and they didn't,

because, you know,
the right people

got to the right people
and it was stopped.

- The original point was,
it was gonna change everything,

and they just backed away.

They didn't do it.
It just never happened.

They had the opportunity.

They had the resources.
They had the power.

They said they wanted to do it.

They didn't do it.
I don't know why.

- I can't...fathom

that I'm the person

that all these fucking
resources went into catching.

I got sentenced
to 12 months and a day.

Out of everybody
who was arrested

and was involved
in the investigation,

I got the longest
prison sentence.

Total sentence I had
for both cases is 18 months.

Federal prison.

Book Richardson
got three months.

Tony Bland got no time.
Probation.

Merl Code got
nine months total.

Jim Gatto got
nine months total.

Munish Sood didn't even get
fucking probation.

I think he just got a fine.

I don't know what Marty got.

He better get
at least ten years.

- Christian Dawkins refused
to cooperate in any way.

He fought both cases
to the end.

I think the feds thought
everyone would plea,

there wouldn't be any trials,
but these guys said nah,

I'm gonna stand up,
I'm gonna argue my case,

and they all lost,
but they made no agreements,

no cooperation
with the government,

and they went down swinging.

- I think he wanted to go down
with his place in history

as a guy that had
an opportunity

really to throw the world
under the bus

in college basketball,
in the community,

and he chose not to.

- We've had cheating
in this game forever.

Players have been paid forever.
Was that confirmed here? Yes.

But did the Southern District
of New York

and the FBI deliver
when they said,

"We have your playbook,"

and they made
all these threats, no.

I think it was actually
a pretty stern rebuke

of the Southern District
of New York

that they only got convictions
in three of the ten charges

that they brought against Merl
Code and Christian Dawkins.

- And I want to be very clear
with this.

Any coach who offers
to pay a player,

in my opinion, is a good guy.

I don't see anything
wrong with it.

I think the players--
the coaches

who are not willing
to help out their players

are not good people.

The way the system is set up,

it's kind of caused
someone to have to step in

to provide what the families
and the players need.

- Let's say
Google, Amazon, says,

"We want to identify
the top STEM students,

the top coders
in high schools,"

and they find one in Saginaw,

and they go in there
and they say,

"We're gonna pay you $20,000

"and you're gonna come intern
for us in the summer,

"and then maybe when
you get out of college,

you come work for us
instead of the competition."

They would write that up
in the newspaper.

They would put that on TV.

It would be
an outreach program.

It would be a way
to inspire young students.

It would be tremendous.

What's the difference?

If Google and Amazon say,

"That kid's worth
20 grand to us.

Come out here for the summer."

In fact, if they said,
"You need to come out here

for the summer
and we don't pay you,"

you'd say
that's absolutely terrible.

But because of amateurism,

and because an entire industry
has made billions

off of the concept of,
"you have to do this for free,"

no one's telling that kid,

"You need to code
for the love of coding."

No one's saying,
"You should go work for Google

for the love of Google."

What is the difference?

There's none,
except they have sold

this concept of amateurism
to America,

and then they sold
a lot of commercials

during the NCAA basketball
tournament around it.

- This is a business.
This is not amateur athletics.

There's nothing amateur

that makes billions
of dollars.

The NCAA brings in every year
a billion dollars

just in television licensing
for college basketball.

And so you have
a multibillion-dollar

licensing business
and none of these people

are paying any taxes
on the money.

The NCAA is a nonprofit
that pays no taxes.

The conferences
are nonprofits.

They pay no taxes.

- You can cry victim, right,

and pretend you're a victim
and then keep getting paid

and just keep the system
the same.

It's perfect.

- Here's the reason why
I'm different from the NCAA.

Yes, I made money.

So did the people with me.

So did the players.

I never took anything
from them.

The NCAA acts as if

they are bigger
than the athlete.

If the athletes were all white

and the coaches and athletic
directors were all black,

there's no way
this would be happening.

♪ ♪

- College athletics
is a lot of fun,

and it brings
communities together.

It does a lot of great things.

But it would continue
to be a good deal

if you allowed the players
to operate in the free market.

Instead, we create a system
that punishes the kids

because nothing's
on the up and up.

It all has to be clandestine.

If you have great players,

you are in possession
of lottery tickets

that are going to cash,

and so the guys
are gonna come for them.

The agents are gonna come,
the shoe reps,

I mean, it just--
they're already there.

They're not coming for them,
they were already there.

- I knew every player
in the world,

every level, every person,

every coach, every everything.

It was addictive, I was--
I loved--

my whole life was basketball.

I had never made a dollar
off of anything in my life

besides basketball
until recently.

♪ ♪

I was literally thinking,
okay, what am I gonna do next?

And the music business
is one business where if--

I was thinking at the time,

if I was to be
a convicted felon,

that wouldn't be a detriment
in music, basically.

- During the first trial,
the day of the convictions,

you know, when those
guilty verdicts came back,

this was Christian.

He wiped my face,
and he was like,

"Dad, let's get
the hell out of here,

"'cause I have a meeting
at 6:00 p.m.

"with Atlantic Records,

with the CEO
of Atlantic Records."

I...

"Chris, shut up."
- [laughs]

- I'll never forget it,
I mean, it'll be...

one of those moments,
I'll be on my death bed

and I'll remember,
while all this was going on,

while Christian is literally--
his future

is on the line,
potentially going to prison,

the whole time,
he's taking an Uber

to midtown, negotiating a deal

with Atlantic Records,
and I had no idea.

- If I'm passionate
about something,

I can laser in,
and I don't care

what's in front of me
or how it's gonna happen,

I'll get it done.

I wanted to do my own label,

and it kind of went quickly

from the standpoint
of finding artists,

managing them,

and getting into
the right rooms

and just being blessed enough
and fortunate enough

to land a deal
of that magnitude

with the number one
record company in the world.

We have a joint venture deal
with Atlantic Records.

The name of the record company

that we created
is called Chosen.

I'm the CEO of Chosen.

- It's hard to get
a record deal.

Atlantic Records gave Christian
his own business,

a record label.

When you think about that,

it seems almost impossible
or unbelievable.

- And it was just like,
at that point,

nothing seemed real anymore.
[chuckles]

- It is reality.

I've got the money,
so it's reality now.

Listen, I think
I can do anything, so...

Maybe that's the gift I have.

I'm so naive

of what I am not supposed
to be able to do

that it's a blessing,

because I'm just like,
why can't I do it?

Why can't I start a label?

I didn't see anything
crazy about it.

I thought that, hey,
just gotta go try and get it,

and not fucking hiring
FBI agents to work with me.

- This is a letter
to the family

when he was trying to get out
of going to school, to college.

This is dated August 8th, 2012,

and the subject is,
"The Final Verdict."

It starts off, "I'm great.

I have a special gift
from God."

He's so crazy.

"I know this to be
factual information.

"It is rare for someone to be
as advanced as me at my age.

"I have a gift
that truly great ones have.

"I am in a class of people
like Gandhi, Barack Obama,

"Jay-Z, Martin Luther King,

"Tiger Woods, Dick Clark,
Michael Jackson,

"Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, etc.

"Revolutionary people
in their fields.

I'm gonna chase my dreams
24-7 every day."

He's so insane.
[laughs]

"And leave a impact
on the world."

♪ ♪

"I've had some success.

"A kid not even 20
was responsible

"for signing two pros.

"That's never happened before.

"Another record I broke--
the first being

"the youngest person ever
to get a shoe deal.

"Maybe I don't have too much
to show for it,

"but I will one day.

"To be clear,
this is what I plan to do.

"My focus is gonna be building
my management company,

"LOYD Management Company,

"into a sports
and entertainment empire.

"I have had some success,
and every day,

"I'm going to continue
to keep trying

"to grow my business
and make it happen.

"Relationships are everything
in my business.

"Every day, I will strengthen
the ones I have

and cultivate new ones."

[voice breaking]
This is so...

It's crazy how all of this
is coming together.

"At the end of the day,
just give me a year.

"If things don't go as planned,
I'll maybe do things

"in a more traditional way.

"Well, no, I won't.

"I'll just try harder
and grind it out

"for another year.

One day, it will happen."

♪ ♪

"Success isn't..."
[sniffs]

Can you read it right here?

"Success isn't..."

- "Success isn't an option
for me.

"That's why I always say
I'm rich,

"'cause one day, I will be,

"and I'm preparing
for that lifestyle now

"while I'm poor.

"I hope you guys understand.

"I love you.

You're the..."

- "Effin' best."
- "Effin' best."

♪ ♪

- Did I do anything wrong?

Yes and no.

I think...

I mean, we clearly weren't
following any rules.

Were any of the defendants
in the cases,

you know, waking up
to defraud people?

No.

I still can't believe
that the FBI

went through all of this

just to stop someone
from getting paid

what they're supposed
to get paid.

It's like, it just doesn't make
common sense to me.

If they think
this basketball shit is bad,

imagine how much money
football players can get.

- The moral of the story is,
fuck the NCAA.

How was that?

Good.

[laughs]

[epic music]

♪ ♪

announcer: This has been
a presentation

of HBO Sports.