News
Navigate

Related Content

Graduate Programs Earn Top 10 Rankings

April 11, 2024

UNC’s Eshelman School of Pharmacy has been ranked the top pharmacy school in the nation...

Read More

RJ Davis, Hubert Davis Claim Year-End Honors

March 12, 2024

  This article was updated March 28, 2024. Senior point guard RJ Davis and head...

Read More

New Undergraduate Major for School of Data Science and Society

March 12, 2024

Beginning this fall, the School of Data Science and Society will launch its first undergraduate...

Read More

Georgia Sports Agent Charged In Football Probe

Posted on Oct. 9, 2013
Terry Watson becomes the second person charged in connection to investigations of UNC's football program.

Terry Watson, left, linked to three former UNC athletes, becomes the second person charged in connection to investigations of UNC’s football program. (Photo by Chuck Liddy/ News & Observer)

A Georgia sports agent has been indicted on 13 counts of athlete agent inducement in connection to UNC’s long-running investigations into its football program.

Charges against Terry Shawn Watson, who appeared today in Orange County District Court, involve three former UNC athletes — Gregory Little ’12, Marvin Austin ’12 and Robert Quinn ’12. All three were dismissed from the Carolina football program in 2010 for illegal dealings with sports agents.

The indictments specifically accuse Watson of providing Little with $18,200 in cash, in addition to providing Little and Quinn with round trip airline tickets from North Carolina to Florida and a hotel room in Miami. Total value in cash and airline tickets provided
to Quinn was $1,526 and to Austin was $2,000 cash, the indictments said.

Watson also faces one count of obstruction of justice on charges that he refused to retain or permit inspection of records of activities to recruit or solicit a college athlete to enter a contract, according to the indictments. District Attorney James Woodall ’82 said Watson could receive no more than probation if convicted on the inducement charges; though the obstruction charge could net a 30-month prison sentence, Woodall said that was unlikely unless the person convicted had a substantial criminal record. Watson was released on $50,000 bond.

Professional sports agents are required by state law to register with the N.C. Secretary of State’s office, and relatively new state laws bar them from providing cash and other benefits to athletes. Woodall said this was the first time charges of athlete agent inducement had been brought in North Carolina. “This is all new ground that we’re plowing,” he said.

Watson’s next court date is Oct. 15, though Woodall said that likely would be postponed because the defense will need time to examine documents related to the case. Woodall said additional indictments related to the investigation likely would be served in the next week or two.

Watson’s attorney, Russell Babb ’95, said Watson’s legal team will be scrutinizing the indictments and look forward to the criminal discovery process “so we can determine what is backing up these allegations.”

Watson is the second of two people to be identified in indictments, reported to contain names of five individuals, that were handed up by an Orange County grand jury last week and were immediately sealed. One was unsealed on Oct. 3 and revealed the name of Jennifer Wiley Thompson ’09, the former tutor who became linked to UNC’s football investigations into its football program. She appeared in Orange County court on Oct. 3, charged with four low-level felony charges in violation of a state law governing contact with sports agents. Thompson was charged with agent athlete inducement.

The indictments against Thompson and Watson center on the aspect of UNC’s problems involving extending improper benefits to athletes. In October 2010, Austin was dismissed from the football program for violating NCAA rules. Little and Quinn were ruled “permanently ineligible,” according to a decision by the NCAA athlete reinstatement staff.

Earlier this year, The News & Observer reported that Austin had told special agents he had received money from an agent regularly while at UNC. That led the N.C. Secretary of State’s office to Watson. The paper said that several thousand dollars was delivered to Austin’s home and that Austin acknowledged it was Watson who gave it to him.

Little and Quinn were declared ineligible for violations of NCAA agent benefits, preferential treatment and ethical conduct rules. According to the facts submitted by the University, the total value of the benefits was approximately $4,952 for Little and $5,642 for Quinn.

Unethical conduct charges were found against both athletes for providing false and misleading information. According to the facts submitted by the University, each athlete was not truthful during three separate interviews with University and NCAA enforcement staff members.

Austin was dismissed for violations of NCAA agent benefits, preferential treatment and ethical conduct rules.

All three now play professional football — Little with the Cleveland Browns, Austin with the Miami Dolphins, and Quinn with the St. Louis Rams.

According to prosecutors, Thompson — known as Jennifer Wiley before her marriage — provided Little with two $579 roundtrip plane tickets to Florida, in part to persuade him to enter a contract with a sports agent. The indictments charge that Thompson delivered packages containing money to Little.

According to various media, Thompson’s and Watson’s arrests are the first of several expected in connection with an investigation by the N.C. Secretary of State’s office into allegations of athletes receiving improper benefits.

In September, nearly three years after Little was suspended from the team, Little told investigators with N.C. Secretary of State’s office that he received more money from a sports agent than previously reported and that Thompson was a go-between with the agent.

In October 2010, Little was declared ineligible by UNC for violations of NCAA agent benefits, preferential treatment and ethical conduct rules.

In the documents unsealed in September, Little reportedly had told state investigators in January that he received multiple payments over many months totaling more than $20,000 from a sports agent in 2010. Little said payments were sent from the sports agent to Thompson and that Thompson then forwarded them to him, according to media reports.

Little was one of 11 players who received varying penalties stemming from disclosures in 2010 that began with reports of improper player contacts with sports agents and other outsiders and evolved into allegations of academic misconduct.

More online…

Share via: