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A Black eye Headed to prison, Black should be a lesson to agentsPosted: Tuesday May 07, 2002 11:21 PMUpdated: Wednesday May 08, 2002 9:51 AM
Shuffling into the federal courtroom Tuesday, dressed in neon orange prison garb and his ankles bound by chains, William "Tank" Black's bad day was about to get much worse. A video of this humiliating entrance should be shipped to every agent and financial planner in the business. It should be required viewing for every know-it-all athlete, for every wealthy pro who thinks he's too slick to be scammed. The smooth-talking Black could only listen as Assistant U.S. Attorney Jerry Sanford belittled him in the Gainesville, Fla., court, saying: "The man has no integrity. He has no honor." U.S. district Judge Stephan P. Mickle uttered words and phrases like "greed" and "lack of remorse" before slapping Black with a five-year prison term -- which will be appealed -- for his part in a fraudulent investment scheme that cost his clients, mostly NFL players, in excess of $12 million. Black was sentenced to seven years last year for money laundering in Michigan and still faces similar charges in Florida. Taking it all in, you had to wonder if this wasn't just the poster-child for slimy sports agents? Is the guy a rip-off artist or an incompetent hustler? Or someone simply ill-advised to be dispensing investment tips?
The judge, at the very least, nailed the remorse part. Sure, Tank spoke through tears in the courtroom, telling the judge: "When I found out [Cash 4 Titles] was not a legitimate business it was the worst day of my life ... I never knew Cash 4 Titles was fraudulent." A couple hours later at the Alachua county jail, where Black is being held until his transfer to a federal facility, he complains of being hammered by the system. In his eyes, he's paid the price for playing in the backyard of the Florida Gators. The defrocked sports agent got it worse than the Enron handlers will ever get it, he quips. Worse even than drug dealers and heinous criminals. In his words, he's been "overpenalized." He lays it all out, telling you it goes back to his giving a handful of Florida football players money while they were still Gators. Sure, he lied about it at first. And this business of directing his clients to invest in what turned out to be a fraudulent scheme, well, Tank had his own money in the deal. His attorney, Jon Uman, says Tank himself is $1.5 million in the hole. Great, but where was Tank when Fred Taylor was throwing $3 million at the bogus deal? Or the trio of Ike Hilliard, Terry Allen and Robert Brooks each sinking in the neighborhood of $2 million? "He's way out of his league in this investment stuff," Uman says. "He's able to pull it off because he's a good public speaker and he's endearing. But you had somebody incredibly unsophisticated." No, Black bypassed the Harvard School of Business. What he is is a former football coach, most recently at South Carolina, who possessed the gift of gab and moxie to venture into the business world. Over the decade of the 1990s, his Columbia, S.C.-based firm, Professional Marketing Incorporated (PMI), came out of nowhere to be a leading sports agent business. The 1999 NFL Draft alone produced an unprecedented five first-round picks, even though unbeknownst to Black -- if you believe him -- PMI already was headed for deep trouble with the Feds. In 1997, Black brought in James Franklin Jr., a Harvard MBA practicing law with a prestigious South Carolina firm, who sold him on the Cash 4 Titles investment. Black, 45, steered his players into the investment, which was supposed to make loans to people who used their car titles as collateral -- promising investors a 3 percent monthly return. Most of the money ended up in a Ponzi scheme based in the Cayman Islands, and when the Feds came calling Franklin turned witness for the government.
"I never expected things to turn the way they have," says Black, speaking through the metal screen in a jailhouse visitation booth. "My intentions were always good, actually. Not to say that I have always made the right decisions, because I made some decisions that I actually regret. Seriously regret." What about earlier courtroom claims of showing no remorse? "I feel terrible that players and certain family members, friends and different people that I was associated with got caught up in this investment," he says, resigned. "And I am sorry for that. Just the fact that I talked to them about it and it turned out not to be good. I am remorseful and I am sorry for it. I don't know what more I could do. "Really, I should not have even talked to anyone about investments. I don't have investment knowledge. I regret talking to anybody about any kind of investments, because I still am getting blamed even though I didn't know [it was a fraudulent scheme]." In the end, with Black facing about 10 years behind bars, no one walks away from the biggest agent fraud case unbloodied. You have Black charging enormous hidden fees to the players -- some of whom earlier hustled illegal payments from him before signing a representation contract -- and the agent himself eventually joining his players as victims of a scam. And, of course, there's the lingering question about the certification process for agents.
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