Former USC Basketball Coach Pleads Guilty in NCAA Corruption Case
Assistant coach Anthony ‘Tony’ Bland faced four counts, including soliciting bribes for himself from an aspiring sports agent and arranging payments to the families of two players
Tony Bland was fired in 2017 by the University of Southern California after he was arrested in a college-basketball corruption probe. PHOTO:MARY ALTAFFER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
By
Rebecca Davis O’Brien
Jan. 2, 2019 4:19 p.m. ET
A former assistant basketball coach at the University of Southern California pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiring to take bribes in exchange for steering top players to financial advisers and sports business managers.
Anthony “Tony” Bland was among four college assistant coaches arrested in September 2017 as a result of an investigation into alleged corruption in college basketball. His case was set to go to trial this spring.
Mr. Bland pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery. He faces a prison sentence of up to 12 months.
A lawyer for Mr. Bland, Jeffrey Lichtman, said the guilty plea “acknowledges an aberrant act in an otherwise law-abiding life.” Mr. Bland hadn’t intended to harm any players, Mr. Lichtman said, adding: “While the NCAA’s system of how it treats college basketball players is antiquated and broken, Tony’s actions still violated the law and he accepts that responsibility.”
Mr. Bland, who played at Syracuse and San Diego State, was fired by USC last year.
He faced four counts, including soliciting bribes for himself from aspiring sports agent Christian Dawkins, arranging payments to the families of two players and conspiring to defraud USC by causing the school to provide scholarships to athletes who were ineligible under NCAA rules because their families had received bribes.
Prosecutors alleged in charging documents that in July 2017, Mr. Bland met in a Las Vegas hotel room with several men, including Mr. Dawkins, a financial adviser and a purported investor (who was in fact an undercover agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation). At the meeting, which was secretly recorded by the FBI, Mr. Dawkins said he would give Mr. Bland $13,000 in cash from the man posing as the investor.
In exchange for the bribe, prosecutors said, Mr. Bland agreed to make sure that two USC players would retain Mr. Dawkins’s company. In subsequent phone conversations captured on wiretaps, Mr. Bland helped arrange for players’ families to receive $9,000 in additional payments. “I definitely can get the players,” Mr. Bland said in a call excerpted in the criminal complaint. “And I can definitely mold the players and put them in the lap of you guys.”
The probe by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office and the FBI yielded charges in 2017 in three separate schemes, one of which has already led to a guilty verdict.
In October, a Manhattan federal jury convicted an Adidas AG executive and two others on charges related to payments they made to the families of top-ranked players.
Two of the defendants in the Adidas case—former consultant Merl Code and Mr. Dawkins—were also charged in the alleged scheme involving Mr. Bland. They are still set to face trial in that case, along with former University of Arizona assistant coach Emanuel “Book” Richardson and former Oklahoma State University assistant coach Lamont Evans.
One-time NBA star Chuck Person, a former coach for the Auburn men’s team, was charged in a separate alleged scheme. He has pleaded not guilty to accepting bribes from a financial adviser and is set to go to trial in February.
The investigation itself was marked by scandal. One of the undercover FBI agents who offered bribes to Mr. Bland and others is under investigation by the Justice Department after he was accused of misappropriating government money and spending it on gambling, food and drinks during the probe.
Write to Rebecca Davis O’Brien at Rebecca.OBrien@wsj.com
Appeared in the January 3, 2019, print edition as 'Coach Pleads Guilty to Bribery.'
Assistant coach Anthony ‘Tony’ Bland faced four counts, including soliciting bribes for himself from an aspiring sports agent and arranging payments to the families of two players
Tony Bland was fired in 2017 by the University of Southern California after he was arrested in a college-basketball corruption probe. PHOTO:MARY ALTAFFER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
By
Rebecca Davis O’Brien
Jan. 2, 2019 4:19 p.m. ET
A former assistant basketball coach at the University of Southern California pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiring to take bribes in exchange for steering top players to financial advisers and sports business managers.
Anthony “Tony” Bland was among four college assistant coaches arrested in September 2017 as a result of an investigation into alleged corruption in college basketball. His case was set to go to trial this spring.
Mr. Bland pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery. He faces a prison sentence of up to 12 months.
A lawyer for Mr. Bland, Jeffrey Lichtman, said the guilty plea “acknowledges an aberrant act in an otherwise law-abiding life.” Mr. Bland hadn’t intended to harm any players, Mr. Lichtman said, adding: “While the NCAA’s system of how it treats college basketball players is antiquated and broken, Tony’s actions still violated the law and he accepts that responsibility.”
Mr. Bland, who played at Syracuse and San Diego State, was fired by USC last year.
He faced four counts, including soliciting bribes for himself from aspiring sports agent Christian Dawkins, arranging payments to the families of two players and conspiring to defraud USC by causing the school to provide scholarships to athletes who were ineligible under NCAA rules because their families had received bribes.
Prosecutors alleged in charging documents that in July 2017, Mr. Bland met in a Las Vegas hotel room with several men, including Mr. Dawkins, a financial adviser and a purported investor (who was in fact an undercover agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation). At the meeting, which was secretly recorded by the FBI, Mr. Dawkins said he would give Mr. Bland $13,000 in cash from the man posing as the investor.
In exchange for the bribe, prosecutors said, Mr. Bland agreed to make sure that two USC players would retain Mr. Dawkins’s company. In subsequent phone conversations captured on wiretaps, Mr. Bland helped arrange for players’ families to receive $9,000 in additional payments. “I definitely can get the players,” Mr. Bland said in a call excerpted in the criminal complaint. “And I can definitely mold the players and put them in the lap of you guys.”
The probe by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office and the FBI yielded charges in 2017 in three separate schemes, one of which has already led to a guilty verdict.
In October, a Manhattan federal jury convicted an Adidas AG executive and two others on charges related to payments they made to the families of top-ranked players.
Two of the defendants in the Adidas case—former consultant Merl Code and Mr. Dawkins—were also charged in the alleged scheme involving Mr. Bland. They are still set to face trial in that case, along with former University of Arizona assistant coach Emanuel “Book” Richardson and former Oklahoma State University assistant coach Lamont Evans.
One-time NBA star Chuck Person, a former coach for the Auburn men’s team, was charged in a separate alleged scheme. He has pleaded not guilty to accepting bribes from a financial adviser and is set to go to trial in February.
The investigation itself was marked by scandal. One of the undercover FBI agents who offered bribes to Mr. Bland and others is under investigation by the Justice Department after he was accused of misappropriating government money and spending it on gambling, food and drinks during the probe.
Write to Rebecca Davis O’Brien at Rebecca.OBrien@wsj.com
Appeared in the January 3, 2019, print edition as 'Coach Pleads Guilty to Bribery.'
