Christian Dawkins, Bribery, New York 2020

Christian Dawkins, Bribery, New York 2020

Grimy Times has learned that Christian Dawkins and Merl Code have been convicted of bribing NCAA Division I men’s college basketball coaches.

Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced the convictions in a statement. Dawkins was found guilty of conspiring to bribe coaches and a substantive count of bribery, while Code was convicted of conspiring to bribe coaches.

Dawkins and Code were previously convicted of their roles in a scheme to defraud an Adidas-sponsored university by funneling payments from Adidas to the family of a high-school college basketball player and then concealing those payments from the school.

The investigation revealed that Dawkins and Code agreed to pay bribes to various NCAA Division I men’s college basketball coaches in exchange for those coaches’ exerting their influence over the student-athletes that they coached in order to retain the services of Dawkins and his new sports management business.

According to the allegations, Dawkins paid bribes to Lamont Evans, an assistant coach at the University of South Carolina, in order for Evans to exert his official influence over student-athletes he coached. Dawkins subsequently introduced Louis Martin Blazer III and Munish Sood to Evans in order for them to continue paying bribes to him.

Dawkins proposed paying bribes to Emanuel ‘Book’ Richardson, an assistant coach at the University of Arizona, in order to secure the commitment of a top high school basketball player to attend the University of Arizona. Dawkins arranged for Richardson to travel to New York City to receive a $5,000 cash bribe and later paid him an additional $15,000 cash bribe in New Jersey.

The convictions mark the culmination of the criminal charges announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in September 2017. Berman stated, ‘Today, Christian Dawkins and Merl Code were found guilty a second time for their roles in corrupting the world of college basketball… Bribing is a crime, one this Office is prepared to charge criminally and prosecute to the full extent of the law.’

The U.S. Attorney’s Office will continue to investigate and prosecute those who engage in corrupt activities in the world of college basketball.

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