Auburn assistant Chuck Person arrested as part of FBI corruption sting

By
Blake Lovell
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Auburn assistant coach Chuck Person has been arrested as part of an FBI corruption sting involving the world of college basketball recruiting.

Lamont Evans (Oklahoma State), Book Richardson (Arizona), and Tony Bland (USC) were also arrested, as was Jim Gatto, the Director of Global Marketing for Adidas.

Here are links to the official FBI charges and complaints for Person, Evans, and Gatto:

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York held a press conference to discuss the findings of the investigation:

FBI officials mentioned in the press conference that the investigation is still ongoing and encouraged anyone with additional information to contact them.

Lovell’s Analysis

This is a game-changer.

There had been rumblings a while back that a significant event was about to happen in the college basketball world, but the details of that event were impossible to know.

And now we know.

Here are some of the initial details on how many coaches/officials/etc. are involved:

  • 10 people currently charged
  • 4 coaches
  • 3 people tied to sportswear companies

According to the FBI, some of the people were involved with cash bribes – some as high as $100,000 – to funnel some of the nation’s top high school recruits to the sportswear companies.

There is also evidence of an alleged text message exchange between Person and an undercover FBI informant:

Also according to the FBI, Gatto’s involvement was based around paying high school players and their families to push them towards Adidas schools, and then sign with the company later down the road.

Before anyone starts to overlook the ramifications of this, there’s an important aspect worth remembering: This is the FBI and Department of Justice, not the NCAA.

We are talking about major legal ramifications and not a minor NCAA investigation. When terms like bribery, money laundering, and wire fraud are involved, nothing good will come out of it.

There are going to be many more details to come as different aspects of this story continue to emerge on what could be one of the most important days in college basketball history.