Sports
Christian Dawkins Details Role in Bribery Scandal in HBO Documentary
Seth Wenig/Associated PressChristian Dawkins, the basketball agent who was sentenced to prison time on wire fraud and bribery charges for his role in college basketball’s pay-for-play scandal, provided his perspective on how the entire situation unfolded during an HBO documentary that aired Tuesday.The Scheme started with video of Arizona head coach Sean Miller and LSU…
Seth Wenig/Associated Press
Christian Dawkins, the basketball agent who was sentenced to prison time on wire fraud and bribery charges for his role in college basketball's pay-for-play scandal, provided his perspective on how the entire situation unfolded during an HBO documentary that aired Tuesday.
The Scheme started with video of Arizona head coach Sean Miller and LSU head coach Will Wade denying ever interacting with Dawkins—which the documentary later detailed to be false—but largely centered on the agent's life and rise until he was a featured part of the FBI's investigation.
“For the first time ever, Dawkins explains how a kid from Saginaw, Michigan wound up in a hotel suite surrounded by FBI agents with a warrant for his arrest,” HBO's website described when introducing the story of the FBI's two-year undercover investigation.
Taylor Rooks @TaylorRooks
One of the more ‘bombshell’ moments of the The Scheme is when they played audio from Will Wade and Sean Miller.
I asked Christian Dawkins what that will mean for the two coaches. #TheSchemeHBO https://t.co/xdOvyZxbYT
The documentary delved into Dawkins' background in Michigan when he started a scouting service and charged college coaches hundreds of dollars for access to his information when he was still a child. It also detailed how he formed an AAU team named Dorian's Pride in honor of his brother who died and was able to land an Under Armour sponsorship for it when he was just a teenager.
He built relationships with shoe companies and college coaches through his AAU team and eventually proved himself in the agency world by signing Elfrid Payton and Rodney Hood in his first job.
From there, The Scheme followed along with Dawkins' journey that ended in a courtroom.
He was eventually introduced to someone named Jeff D'Angelo, who, along with someone named Jill Bailey, helped fund LOYD Management Inc. The documentary featured video footage of Dawkins meeting with D'Angelo and Bailey on a yacht and signing a contract that set up a situation where they would give him money to use in the agency world and recruit players.
Dawkins explained his plan at the time was to use his grassroots relationships with high school players and college coaches to get players paid early, and then they would choose his agency when they made it big in the NBA.
However, he said D'Angelo was adamant about the money going through college coaches who would then theoretically steer the players to choose their agency down the line.
Dawkins did not know D'Angelo and Bailey were undercover FBI agents who considered the college coaches public figures, which could set up bribery charges if the money went through them.
The documentary made it clear Dawkins did not respect D'Angelo and even contacted someone he knew in law enforcement to conduct a background check on him. Dawkins felt it was a waste of money to go through the coaches and even kept some of it himself because he wanted to rely on his relationships with the players.
D'Angelo mysteriously was no longer involved for a period of time because of what Dawkins was told was family issues in Europe following a trip to Las Vegas, but the agent was supposed to meet him and Bailey in New York.
However, Dawkins said he was greeted by multiple people he didn't know in New York, and Bailey revealed she was an undercover agent. It was also clear to him at that time the FBI tapped his phone—especially when Miller called him and multiple phones rang—and wanted him to cooperate with the investigation.
Dawkins said that when he asked to speak to a lawyer, he was instead greeted by agents with machine guns and taken to a federal holding cell.
He also said his bank accounts were frozen, and he had to use the $90,000 he had saved at his house, much of which came from the money he was supposed to give the coaches, to pay for lawyers for the two eventual trials.
The documentary then detailed the two trials, which presented the schools as victims of shoe companies like Adidas and agents like Dawkins because they defrauded the universities by making the players ineligible for their scholarships with payments.
“Paying players has been going on for a hundred years,” Dawkins said while also revealing he was “beyond pissed off” the government implied the schools receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in shoe company sponsorships were victims.
The documentary also interviewed Rebecca Davis O'Brien of the Wall Street Journal, who wrote an investigative article showing the FBI agent who went by D'Angelo misappropriated government money during the Las Vegas trip. That is why he was no longer involved in the case, but the jurors at the two trials were apparently never made aware that some of the FBI investigators allegedly committed misconduct.
The Scheme noted Dawkins was sentenced to 18 months in prison, which was the longest of anyone involved in the case.
It also broke down the fact that none of the major coaches involved ever testified even though the documentary included recorded phone calls of Miller and Wade talking with Dawkins about paying for recruits.
“We could compensate him more than the rookie minimum,” Wade allegedly said of a recruit while also talking about the “strong ass offers” he made.
Dawkins also said “there's no way you can separate Sean from it,” when discussing the notion it was only Arizona assistant coach Book Richardson who was involved in paying for recruits.
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