Ex-All-Star could see jail time for not paying support

	Ralph Sampson played nine NBA seasons with the Houston Rockets, Golden State Warriors, Sacramento Kings and Washington Bullets. Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images

With eight children from five women, former basketball player Ralph Sampson must have known there would be difficulties in their care and feeding.

But the difficulties in supporting his children now include the possibility of jail time. In a trial scheduled to begin Sept. 7 in Richmond, the former University of Virginia star faces federal charges of perjury, mail fraud, making a false claim and making a false statement. Charges of non-support and violating his probation are pending against him.

Although federal charges are rare in child-support cases, federal prosecutors have long pursued Sampson, perhaps to make a high-profile example of him. They began investigating him in 2003, when they discovered that he was $51,000 behind in payments for two teenage daughters. In April of that year, Sampson pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville, Va., to misdemeanor failure to pay child support. He was sentenced to one year's probation and ordered to pay restitution. In a separate case in federal court in Richmond three months later, Sampson agreed to a plea deal on another non-support charge and was put on two years' probation and fined $1,000.

Sampson ran afoul of authorities again less than two years later. In May 2005, according to prosecutors, Sampson, who once more had fallen behind in his payments, asked his probation officer for permission to leave the northern district of Georgia, where he lives. The officer turned down the request. Sampson left anyway, traveling to Mexico. Less than two weeks later, after Sampson had returned home to suburban Atlanta, federal authorities arrested him and charged him with failure to pay nearly $300,000 in child support and violation of probation.

Sampson pleaded guilty to non-support in October 2005 (sentencing was eventually postponed until after his upcoming trial). But his troubles only deepened. He had used a public defender to represent him in the 2005 case, and to qualify for the free-of-charge lawyer he had answered a series of questions about his financial situation while sworn to tell the truth. It was here that federal authorities say Sampson committed perjury, by failing to provide a full and accurate picture of his finances.

Sampson said that he was self-employed at a company called Sampson Communications but had no income from the job. Federal authorities maintain that he was working for $5,000 a month at a Brookneal, Va.-based telecommunications company known as ezTel LLC. The Web site for Sampson Communications has disappeared, and officials of ezTel did not return SI.com's calls.

Prosecutors also allege that Sampson failed to disclose that he lived rent-free in a real estate development in return for promotional appearances and that he tried to hide his ownership of a vehicle. They say that he purchased a Yukon Denali SUV for $43,000 in 2004 but put the title in the name of a corporation he owned, Stick Five-O Inc. (Both at Virginia and in nine NBA seasons with the Houston Rockets, Golden State Warriors, Sacramento Kings and Washington Bullets, the 7-foot-4 Sampson wore uniform number 50.) In July 2005 the state of Georgia dissolved Stick Five-O because Sampson had not paid the necessary corporation fees for two years. (Sampson's lawyer would not comment on the allegations involving his client's housing and SUV.)

Court papers show that Sampson's income dropped precipitously after his final NBA contract ran out. He received $539,060 in 1999 and $134,765 in 2000 from the Kings. In 2001, his first year without NBA income, he earned only $11,207. When Sampson was arrested in 2003, his parents had to put their house in Harrisonburg, Va., up as security for his bond.

Sampson's children range in age from three to 21. The three-year-old lives with Sampson and a woman he lists in court papers as his fiancée, Rosalyn Bell. Four of the children came from a 17-year marriage, which ended in divorce in 2003.

No longer relying on a public defender, Sampson is now represented by James Roberts of Richmond. Roberts is one of the state's top lawyers, a former president of the Virginia State Bar. He will try to work things out with the government; if he can't, his famous client may have a new rent-free residence.

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