Contracts in the Safe

An entertainment agent signed 58 college football players to secret representation contracts while they were still playing, giving them cars and cash. Signing with an agent made a player ineligible under college rules, so the contracts were post-dated and locked in a safe, and the agent promised to lie to the universities if asked. The universities kept paying the players' scholarships and mailed forms certifying the players' eligibility to their athletic conference. Prosecutors said this was a scheme to defraud the universities of scholarship money, carried out through the mails. After an earlier trial was overturned, the agent entered a conditional plea preserving his challenge. The defence argued his aim was to profit from the players' future professional contracts, not to take the universities' money, and that the colleges' own mailings were no part of his plan.