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 Loaded with trouble FBI investigating possible payments to Michigan players
Posted: Friday May 14, 1999 05:57 PM
DETROIT (AP) -- A federal grand jury has subpoenaed former Michigan basketball standouts in its probe into whether a now-banned booster made improper payments to players. The panel has subpoenaed former Michigan basketball players, including NBA players Chris Webber, Robert Traylor, Louis Bullock and Maurice Taylor, the Detroit Free Press reported Friday, citing an unidentified person close to the investigation. The subpoenas were issued as federal agents continued investigating Ed Martin, his ties to the Ann Arbor school and his suspected link to gambling in Ford Motor Co. plants, the Free Press reported. An attorney and agent for Webber, now with the NBA's Sacramento Kings, acknowledged the grand jury probe. Martin was a target in a 1997 investigation of the university's basketball program. It led to minor NCAA sanctions, the firing of coach Steve Fisher and -- according to the school's president, Lee Bollinger -- the implementation of "numerous safeguards that we hope have insulated our program from such corrupting influences." The current FBI investigation involves possible improper payments to players going back "many years," Bollinger said. "Obviously, if this turns out to be true, it is extremely embarrassing to the university," he said. "We have been told by the FBI that the investigation to date does not implicate or involve our current coaching staff and does not suggest any gambling or improper activity related to athletic games." David Price, the NCAA's vice president for enforcement, told The Ann Arbor News on Thursday that the organization could pursue any new violations under the organization's four-year statute of limitations. But Bill Saum, the NCAA's director of agent and gambling activities, said the NCAA will wait to see how the federal investigation proceeds. Wiretaps on Martin recorded conversations with several former stars, including Webber, Robert Traylor, Louis Bullock and Maurice Taylor, the Free Press Friday reported an unidentified person close to the investigation as saying. Those recordings provided the basis for search warrants executed last month on Martin's home, nine other ones and an office, the source said. Authorities allege the raids netted roughly $150,000. As for Martin's possibly improper involvement with former Wolverines, a source the Free Press did not identify said "it involved very large amounts of money, and it may end up that a current player or two had taken money." Agents for the players are saying little. "There is a grand jury going on," said L. Fallasha Erwin, Webber's attorney and agent. Asked whether his client had been subpoenaed or interviewed by the FBI, Erwin said only that Webber would cooperate with the investigation. Other players under scrutiny, the Free Press sources said, include Taylor, Traylor, Bullock and Jalen Rose of Indiana Pacers. Traylor has denied accepting money from Martin, the Free Press said. But on Thursday, Rose responded to questions by saying, "At this point in time, it's unnecessary drama. And I won't feed into that foolishness." When reached at his parents' Maryland home, Bullock said of the suspected payments to players: "I didn't have anything to do with it." He said he had not been interviewed by federal agents or, apparently, subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury. As for Martin, Bullock said: "I never accepted anything from him. That's all you need to write. My parents are well off. We've never taken anything from him; we've never needed anything from him." Athletic director Tom Goss, who took over after the 1997 probe, said in a statement this week that the Wolverines have taken strong steps in the past two years to shield athletes from Martin.
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