Ex-assistant Evans asks judge to dismiss charges
Former Oklahoma State basketball assistant coach Lamont Evans and four other defendants are asking a federal judge in New York to dismiss a bribery and conspiracy indictment against them that arose from an investigation into corruption alleged throughout college basketball.
Defense attorneys for Evans; former Southern Cal assistant Tony Bland; former Arizona assistant Book Richardson; former Adidas representative Merl Code; and Christian Dawkins, a former runner for NBA agent Andy Miller, requested the dismissal Monday.
The attorneys state that even if the defendants committed NCAA violations, their alleged actions were not federal crimes.
"In this case, the Government has singled out certain alleged NCAA rules violations as 'corrupt' and decided to prosecute them as federal crimes," the attorneys wrote. "... The Indictment should be dismissed because the allegations fail to support a conviction under any viable theory of criminal liability.”
Evans, 41, left South Carolina to join OSU’s staff as an assistant under Brad Underwood before the 2016-17 season. After Underwood left for Illinois following one season as the Cowboys’ coach, Evans was one of five candidates to replace him, but the job eventually went to fellow assistant Mike Boynton, who subsequently named Evans his associate head coach.
Evans was arrested Sept. 26, 2017, and fired from OSU two days later. He allegedly accepted at least $22,000 in bribes while at OSU and South Carolina to steer players toward Dawkins and others as financial advisers once they were in the NBA.
In the motion to dismiss, defense attorneys argue Evans, Richardson and Bland were not acting as their respective universities’ basketball coaches but rather as individuals when recommending financial advisers to players.
They argue the alleged actions did not occur on campuses or during the universities’ “official activities” but instead during the coaches’ “down time.”
Their motion also notes that many NCAA violations occur with regularity and are not pursued as federal crimes.
“It is hard to imagine what federal interest is at stake in enforcing a private, non-profit organization’s (the NCAA) amateur rules,” the attorneys wrote.
Also Monday, defense attorneys asked the judge to throw out any government evidence that came from eight wiretap orders in 2017. The attorneys claim the application for the first wiretap order, issued April 7, 2017, didn’t identify the Department of Justice official who authorized the request and lacked probable cause.
Evans is scheduled to appear in court for trial April 22. OSU is undergoing an internal review with assistance from The Compliance Group, a firm headed by Chuck Smrt, the former NCAA Director of Enforcement.