The U.S. Attorney’s Office asked a federal judge to drop criminal charges against Jonathan Augustine, the former president of The League Initiative and director of the 1 Family AAU in Orlando, Florida. Augustine was charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering after the FBI’s two-year investigation into bribes and corruption in men’s college basketball.
The college hoops investigation led to the arrests of four assistant coaches: Arizona’s Emanuel “Book” Richardson, Auburn’s Chuck Person, Oklahoma State’s Lamont Evans and USC’s Tony Bland. Also arrested were Adidas executives Jim Gatto and Meryl Code, financial planner Munish Sood, sports agent Christian Dawkins and Augustine. Augustine and Sood weren’t indicted on the federal charges, and it’s believed that both are cooperating with federal authorities. Augustine being dismissed and potential cooperation with Sood is a very interesting development where it seemed all parties involved were going down.
The FBI alleged that Augustine met with Gatto, Code, Dawkins and an unnamed Louisville assistant coach at a Las Vegas hotel room and the group agreed to funnel funds through the 1 Family program.
Jonathan Augustine was quoted as saying:
“All my kids will be [Adidas] kids.”
Financial planner Marty Blazer, who was complying with the feds and an undercover FBI agent was present at the meeting in which the FBI recorded with hidden video cameras.
Per ESPN, in a separate motion filed, attorneys representing Code, Dawkins and Gatto asked a federal judge to exclude certain wiretap recordings and suppress evidence from the searches of the men’s cellphones
