The Corruption of Student Athletes Continues…

[Foxbat]

The NY Times Athlete says that Federal Prosecutors are charging twenty men with Alleged Conspiracy to manipulate the outcomes of College Basketball games in the 2023 through 2025 seasons. Sorry if this is paywalled; you should be able to open in Safari with the Reader feature to see the article.

Federal prosecutors charge 20 men with alleged conspiracy to manipulate college basketball games

The scheme, according to federal prosecutors, involved two men indicted this fall for their alleged role in an NBA gambling scheme.

www.nytimes.com

PHILADELPHIA — Federal prosecutors announced charges Thursday for 20 men for what they said were their roles in an alleged conspiracy to bribe and manipulate college basketball games involving then-active college athletes. The scheme, according to federal prosecutors, involved two men who were also indicted this fall for their alleged role in an NBA sports gambling scheme as well as former LSU and NBA player Antonio Blakeney.

Prosecutors said that the scheme ultimately included 39 college basketball players on more than 17 teams who shaved points in more than 29 Division-I games.

Shane Hennen and Marves Fairley, two men who were indicted in a federal district in New York in October, worked with Blakeney and a number of others to manipulate college basketball games during the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons, according to an indictment brought by the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Prosecutors said Hennen and Fairley worked with others to recruit college players with bribes and then asked them to help fix games so their teams would not cover the spread — the number of points by which a sportsbook predicted a team would lose its game. The players, prosecutors say, were offered between $10,000 to $30,000 for each game to be a part of their gambling ring. Hennen and Fairley face three federal charges, while Blakeney was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

"This is a prosecution of the criminal corruption of college athletics," said David Metcalf, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, at a news conference Thursday.

The scheme was alleged to be far-ranging, including players on DePaul, Nicholls State, Tulane, La Salle, Fordham, Northwestern State, Saint Louis, Buffalo, Robert Morris, Southern Miss, North Carolina A&T, Coppin State, University of New Orleans, Abilene Christian, Alabama State and Kennesaw State. Four of the players charged Thursday are active college basketball players: Kennesaw State's Simeon Cottle, Eastern Michigan's Carlos Hart, Delaware State's Camian Shell and Texas Southern's Oumar Koureissi.

Whoever thought that betting on Collegiate Sports was "just fine" and "wouldn't cause any issues" should lose all their ill-gotten gains. I'm old enough to remember when College Sports were contested with true amateur Student athletes. That ship sailed and was sunk years ago, and now you have teammates sabotaging their fellow teammates just to make the spread.

This is why we can't have nice things…