April 10, 2020 • 42 mins
Back in front of the big screen, Ben and his subtle wingman return with a look inside another flick. The fellas get together to give their personal reviews on a recent documentary that was courtesy of HBO. It's simplistic in nature and shockingly it is all about sports! Sit back and have some fun. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and post a review of the podcast whenever you get the chance.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, minutes a week
was enough, I think again. He's the last remnants of
the old republic, a sole fashion of fairness. He treats
crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as the rich
pill poppers in the penthouse the clearing House of Hot
takes break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with
(00:23):
Ben Maller starts right now. That it does, and I
hope you're doing well and happy social distancing weekend which
is upon us as we present to you another edition
of The Fifth Hour with Ben Mallard. Bonus coverage during
the pandemic, and if this continues here, I guess we'll
just do three shows a week for forever. But four
(00:46):
hours not enough of the Overnight Show. We are proud
to be in the air everywhere throwing audio tantrums via
the vast power of the I Heart Podcasting Network, the
Global Reach Podcasting and this podcast is originally was heard
weekly and now it's heard every weekend, multiple days, Friday,
(01:09):
Saturday and Sunday. You get your podcast right here and
as always, for better or worse, I am joined by
the gascon Man, the gag on Man, David Gascon. We're man,
we're just loud, proud. I think about my friend uh
(01:33):
In in Cincinnati, Justin, the guy that sprays and praise
his uh his his viruses all over the place. But Ben,
we're we're rocking it here. From March to April, we're
up sixty eight percent. We are the hottest podcast within
the Fox Sports Radio umbrella right now. We're kicking and screaming. Well,
(01:53):
it's very nice that people are listening to the podcast.
Of course, we have done more podcasts. The numbers are
skewed quite a bit. We were doing one a week
and now we're doing three a week, so the numbers
have skyrocketed up, not to not to deflate the balloon,
of course, but fair In September, October, November, we were
doing Benny Versus the Penny as well. Yeah, that's sure.
(02:14):
We were doing multiple podcast then. And uh it's it's
awkward though, because people are listening more in part because
of what's going on. There's not a lot of new
content out there, so people are looking for anything, even
audio content that's brand new, and everyone's losing their marbles,
it seems like because what's going on, and so I
(02:36):
it's this is an awkward situation, but we'll we'll take
it um. Now. The real test is when things get
back to normal. If you knuckleheads still listen, that's the
real test. Uh. And we'll find out how how much
you like to show once things get back to normal.
I just had a thought in my head here you
mentioned Justin and Cincinnati that inspired me. I had an
(02:57):
epiphany the other day when I was walking to work.
As I walked to work down starting environment and I
was walking from my bedroom down the hallway, and then
I had to make a left turn into the studio
from my bedroom, and then I had to walk in
the studio, walk into the chair, I had to sit down,
I had to turn the computer on, turn on the
big radio box that I have here. But in that time,
(03:19):
the very short walk that I have to work, I thought,
you know, Justin has always been the biggest bad guy
on the Mallar Militia, the most negative guy. But I
I believe that Mr Nice Guy and Angry Bill are
giving him a run for his money, a legitimate run
for bragging rights in the entire cosmos of the Malla Militia,
(03:44):
for being the most negative person that contacts us during
the show. Well to be fair, though they're also divided
blue versus red, or in this case, two blues and
one red. Yeah, well that's true because you've got angry
Bill who calls up a couple of times a week
with his horseplay, who thinks these are end times, that
this is armageddon, it's some kind of biblical prophecy, and
(04:05):
we're all dead and life will never come back to normal.
And he's like the same mindset, Like there's certain guys
that just think that life will never ever change, that
whatever is going on right now is going to continue.
It's called being a prisoner of the moment. Gast go on,
that's the term. And these people and I have all people.
(04:26):
You know, we're both guest gone. You're similar to me
that you have a reputation of the business of being
very negative, that that you're you're looking at the bad
part of life. But in this case, I have somehow
morphed into Mr Positive, which is very uncomfortable for me.
And as I've said several times on the radio show,
I love the fact that people are getting very upset
(04:46):
when I say positive things. I haven't gone full Clay
Travis because Clay has taken at next level, but I
am optimistic. If people get upset, they get upset with me.
It's it's crazy. The thing is is that's lost in
a lot of people. As you have perspective and you
have experience. So when you talk about some of these
things that have gone on in life, you have the
(05:07):
advantage of having seen or heard or been in the
middle of certain situations. You have the opportunity to see
it from not only the entry but also the exit.
Or a lot of these people are only experienced in
these situations for the first time ever, or they were
just completely oblivious to things in the past. Well that's
true to a point. But Mr. Nice Guy and Angry
(05:30):
Bill or or they're they're older than me. They've been
around longer than I have. They've lived life, They've seen things.
I just remember back to I guess the comp for
this would be nine eleven, And I remember after nine eleven,
people are like, oh man, it's you know, we're gonna
be It's never gonna be the same, It's gonna be yeah,
you know, things A little things are different, like going
to the airport is much different than before nine eleven,
(05:51):
and there's more security at certain things. But relatively speaking,
things are pretty much the same as they were before.
There's a even more to mean this is but they're
they're mild inconvenience. But see, here's the thing that I
will agree with those guys on is a simple fact
that now you have companies that want to track you.
They want to put chips inside of you and track
(06:13):
you and find out like your status, find out if
you had contracted the coronavirus, if you are if you
are healthy, if you have recovered that. Those things I'm
not comfortable with at all. And now people are talking
more and more about five G and how that's coming
into you want to go full? You want to go
full Alex Jones like you want to go down that. Yeah,
(06:36):
but we have a lot of time, and so there's
things that do worry me. Thankfully here in California. And
I know this is not in allowed kind of way,
but there are a lot of people here in this state,
this great state then that are locked and loaded, which
is great because if ever they came a time or
they needed to push back in this republic, I'm fully
(06:56):
confident that California would rise above the rest. Uh well
not you listen, there's there's many places that would rise
above me and I. I've talked about this on the podcast.
The last couple of weeks I go for a walks.
I haven't been for a walk this week because it's
been raining in l A. And I haven't been able
to get out of my house, which blows. But that's
a different problem. But every time I walked by, there
(07:19):
a couple of gun shots. I live in the interesting
part of town. I guess there's a couple of gun
shots here. And it's like the It's like the Okay
Corral out there, people just lining up to buy guns.
Every every time I've walked by these guns stores, it's
like the old west Man. People are loading up, trying
to get ready for whatever they think, uh is coming,
whatever they believe is coming there. And So now is
(07:40):
this a perfect and proper segue to what we're getting
into today? Uh? Yeah, I mean it could be. Uh
it is time for ready for it? Another Mound film
review we uh So, I did some commercials for the
(08:01):
documentary The Scheme, which is currently broadcast on HBO that's
Home Box Office. I watched it on HBO's on demand
feature watched it a few days ago, and it is
about college basketball I loved it. We're gonna get into
some of the meat and potatoes of this. It follows
around this guy named Christian Dawkins who was in the
(08:26):
fifth grade. This guy was in the fifth grade. He
read some book from Dan Wetzel about college basketball and
corporate money and corruption of young people. And that book
resonated so much. You know, he's in that golden era
of your life where you read something and that just
translates your life, you have an epiphany. And he decided
(08:50):
right then that he wanted to get into becoming a
basketball kind of agent, that kind of guy. And that's
how the story starts, and it ends up with the
fbo I being involved. We'll get into some of it
before we give the Mallard film review. Now, normally you
would wait till the end to say what the grade
is of the podcast, you know, on the podcast, but um,
(09:11):
I'm gonna actually give my my number grade one to
ten with ten being mcmillions. I enjoyed Tiger King guest
Guns to Elite is to watch Tiger King's two above that.
But I I eat give the scheme on HBO. I'm
giving in an aid out of ten on the Mallard
(09:32):
scale of documentary. Now, it's not as good as mcmillions
and some of the other stuff. It is obviously one side.
It's that's the one thing we didn't hear from the
other side. Um. There the reasons for that. We'll get
into and we talk about the podcast, but I give
it an aid out of ten, and I guess you
watched it. What is the guestscon score. I'm gonna give
(09:53):
it a little bit lower. I'm gonna give it a six.
There was a lot of things they felt that were
left out. And I also think that it really came
flat towards the end when when we were waiting for
that build up, it just never came. And I thought
the way that it intro it was fantastic. But as
we'll get into, I just thought the ending just it
(10:14):
left me wanting a lot more. And I just thought,
be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Meller
Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific on
Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app. All right, well,
let's get into it. So for those that do not
know the story, we talked about this on the radio.
It was a big story in sports media. The FBI
(10:35):
was bringing down college sports. The jig was up right,
all the debate and bickering that we've had over the
years about student athletes, and uh, it turns out that
these guys, many of the top basketball players, and let's
be honest, football players, have been getting money under the
table forever and as long as you can remember. And
(10:57):
so it's technically illegal to do some of that stuff,
depending on how you do it. And so this scandal
was supposed to bring down college basketball and it began
with Christian Dawkins. The FBI UH investigated this. They had
wire taps, they were listening into dawkins phone conversations. And
(11:20):
this was supposed to be a pioneering corruption scandal and
as guests gone referred to at the end, it fizzled out.
But it did bring down a bunch of assistant coaches
and low level players in this. And so Dawkins, the guy,
Christian Dawkins, who was the star of the documentary and
the star of the story, Uh, he had a sports agency.
(11:44):
Well he started out in the fifth grade. He was
like that, I guess we should start with that because
this guy was a hustler. Some of the highlights of
this thing. I love people that just kind of go
for it and you don't need a formal education. You
just know what you want to do when you go
for it. Christian Dawkins came from a Michigan family that
had been very successful in basketball locally at the high
(12:05):
school level. He started his own high school basketball scouting
publication when he was eleven years old. Guest, because how
great is that this church hustling? I love it? Coaches
six hundred dollars for a subscription. That was fantastic. Forty
year old coaches are paying eleven year old all this
money for a subscription. How great is that he was making?
(12:26):
He was making buco bucks. I thought. The best thing
that he did with that publication. Two is he actually
ranked himself numerous times, which is what you must do
when you're eleven years old, right, I mean, why why
would you do something like that? Uh, if you're eleven,
you gotta rank yourself, all right. He also a little
bit after that he organized his own traveling team. Um,
(12:51):
and he did that he was he was in high school,
and he put his own tournament. He had an entire
fucking tournament that this kid put together while he was
in high school. Like, what do you call what's the
Dorian's cause. I thing it was Dorian's cause whatever, But
that was based on his brother that passed away from
a from a heart attack at the age of fourteen. Yeah,
that was sad. He he died during a game when
(13:13):
he told his brother point Blake when it was at
the free throw line, I feel tired, and he collapsed
on the court and they tried resuscitating him and then
they couldn't do So, Yeah, that was sad. His parents
weren't there. They were at a wedding or something like that,
so it was sad. So but this guy, Christian Doctors,
he didn't attend college. He ends up working because he
had some connections already from his tournament and stuff. He
(13:35):
starts working for this agent, Andy Miller, who was featured
quite a bit in the documentary. He then ends up
successfully and he's still not even you know, not even
like twenty years old. He starts recruiting current NBA players
are that are now in the NBA before they were
in the NBA, and he signed Alfred Payton who's had
(13:59):
a decent NBA crew, Rodney Hood who's played in the NBA.
That was the there was like the first two guys
he signed NBA players um Fred Vanvlee. They they interviewed
Fred Vanvley to the Raptors. He was they interviewed him
in this So the guy was very good. Christian Dawkins. Uh,
(14:19):
I don't know how would you say he's the gift
for gab. I guess would be one way to look
at it. I think two things. One is he he's
relatable and some of the players even said at point blank,
it's a skin color. He said a lot of the
guys that came into those rooms, if they weren't black,
they weren't dealing with them. And I think Van Fleet
was one of the guys who actually talked about Miller
(14:40):
and he said, yeah, he did all the legal stuff,
but it was Dawkins who handled everything prior to that,
and he's the one that crafted the relationship. He wouldn't
have done business with Lee had it not been for Dawkins. Yeah,
so race was a part of this, but Dawkins also
seemed like we've all known people like this, whether they're black, white,
or whatever, who are just great each man, you know,
(15:00):
and they just able to they got diarrhea of the mouth,
and they're sweet talkers and he's got that going on.
But see, here's the thing. This goes all the way
back to what you mentioned with how he started his publication.
Was this kid was all over the place. He was
going to all these games, he was going to these practices,
so he was in sight and in mind, like he
was around these guys all the bleep in time. And
(15:22):
so when you're around like that and you have people
buttering you up and then all of a sudden writing
about you in publications and getting all that juice from
these coaches and then adds your credibility, and then you
can show that to these prospective young student athletes that
are hoping to go to the D one level. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
for sure. I mean it was very interesting to see
how this works. Like I've known some of these people
(15:44):
over my years being around when I used to go
to NBA games all the time, and these guys would
hang out at the NBA games also, so I've I've
known a few of them, but I didn't really know
like the meat and potatoes of what it was. Like.
I had some ideas and this, you know, this is
his story, so it's probably I'm not the same for everybody.
But it's Christian Dawkins story, which is I would think
similar to a lot of what goes on. And then
(16:05):
we had our first scandal in this documentary, which was
a reverence and I vaguely remember using this as a
tease on the radio, and I don't even remember doing
a monologue about it, but it was known as uber
Gate and Christiandwkins. That was a scandal involving him a
couple of years back in seventeen and he lost his job.
(16:28):
There was a big headline that was all over the
internet at the time saying that an NBA they called
him an agent, right, and they said he had stolen
forty thou dollars in uber rides or something like that
he had charged them to I think it was Alfred
Payton's credit card. Yes, But here's the weird thing about this,
as you know this, when you have a company website,
if you go to any law firm or any kind
(16:50):
of PR firm, and you have entities that are involved,
and you have employees, usually gonna have the managing partner,
You're gonna have the founder of the CEO, of the president,
and they're gonna have all the underlings as well, and
you'll have names and titles and probably a bioattached, right,
But Dawkins didn't have any of that. He was on
(17:10):
the company website, but just his name. There was no
title underneath it, no bio, nothing of that. So he
was they had guys in there that classified him as
like a quote unquote runner and yeah, yeah, which is
like it's like when you get into the movie business.
You know, you're you're hanging out bringing food and going
to the store, and you're you're helping out the people
(17:33):
on the set, but you're not really like you don't
have a defined role, right as I understand what your
worked in the movies, but as when I understand the
pas are like that too a lot. Yeah, yeah, we
used to have interns, and I'm not allowed to have
interns anymore, guests on it at our job, but years
ago I had interns with some of them very successful interns.
By the way, You've gone on and on great things,
(17:54):
but I I'm no longer allowed to teach the younger generation.
There's a reason for that, alright, us are you you're
making that up? That's a lie. Back to the documentary,
this guy Christian Dawkins were talking about it's pretty much
all about him and his buddy, and they were the
main players that were interviewed in this. So the let's
get to the meat and potatoes here. So Dawkins claimed
(18:15):
he did not want to bring in college coaches like that.
The FBI's intent was clear that they wanted to bring
down the big name coaches, and so Christian Dawkins, at
least that's the way the documentary presented. So Dawkins joined
some investors, this guy Jeff de'angelo and his partner Jill Bailey,
(18:38):
a couple of good names there. Turns out they were
the undercover FBI agents who were part of this. And
then they had the financial advisor Munish sod is that
his name? To get that right? I got that right? Um,
And he was like the money guy. He was worked
at a bank and he had connections to the cash
and all that. Yeah, he was a financial advisor and
(18:59):
yeah so um so he he I guess that he's
the guy. Eventually later on he gave funds to Mark
ll Folts, Kyle Kuzma's agent, some other people uh as well.
But in the documentary, Dawkins talks about how the guy
who was the FBI agent. D'Angelo was the one who
(19:22):
was pushing to pay college coaches in order to steer
players to sign with their company, and the way it
was presenting the documentary was that he didn't want to
do it, and Dawkins made a compelling argument. What I
felt was a compelling argument. Obviously, he's biased, he's he's
part of this, but his argument was he knew how
the game was played guess gun, and the way the
(19:44):
game was played was not involved the college coaches. That instead,
it's just a transaction between the families and the players.
The coaches are aware of it, and the coaches might
set it up, but ultimately it it's a relationship between
an agency and the player, which makes sense logically because
(20:07):
ultimately that player is going to leave college, whether they
go to Louisville, North Carolina, u C, l A, Duke,
or wherever, and they're not gonna have a relationship with
that school most likely other than just when they get
introduced in an NBA game they say their name that
they went to Duke or uh, you know, Oregon or
Washington or Minnesota or something like that. But they want
(20:29):
that guy's a client, so that personal relationship. But they
would think that they're they're gambling that would carry over
to when they get to the NBA and make the
real money. And that's where I was confused on all
this is because if they wanted to uproot the scandal
that was in college basketball, I mean making that linear
connection from from a broker to a player with a
(20:51):
coach as they I don't want to say in between them,
but just as that kind of conduit. I don't know.
I don't understand why his motive would be like at
and Dawkins was sniffing that thing out, which is intense.
And there was at one point where he actually had
a friend in the d a's office that was connected
to the FBI and they ran a background check on D'Angelo.
(21:13):
So it wasn't like he didn't trust what was going on,
but he knew that something just wasn't adding up. Be
sure to catch live editions of The Ben Maller Show
weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific. Yeah. Yeah,
I mean it was. It was one of those things.
The way it was presented was like, hey, he this guy,
Christian Dawkins knew how the game was played. He knew
(21:33):
that here's what you do you find the player, you
pay off the family, do what you gotta do. You
got the player. But this guy the FBI agents, so
like when we gotta bring the coaches down, and so
Dawkins ultimate is like to appease them because he wanted
their money and he thought he didn't realize their FBI
agents they were just And that's the other thing. The
FBI spent how much money they were just handing money
six figures. Yeah. The most yeah, the most alarming thing
(21:56):
was the fact that these guys took money from federal
agents are taxpayers money, and they spent a boatload of
it on an actual yacht and in Vegas, gambling, going
to strip clubs, you know, drinking, parting the whole fucking
nine yards. And I'm like, this is absolutely bogus how
this all went down. And later on not don't bear
(22:18):
the lead, my mind, it's not really the lead. Um.
Later on they determined that this guy, Jeff d'antel, who left,
he had been one of the big players in this
as an FBI agent, and then he vanished. They said
he had a sick relative in Italy. But it turns
out that he had been spending some of that FBI
our money in Vegas. Apparently he was having a grand
(22:41):
old time gambling and boozing and debauchery there in Vegas,
misappropriation of government funds as they would call it. Ben Mallory.
Now see, I was asking the chief about this, and
I think you guys should chat about this a little
bit longer too. But part of this goes to his
argument about entrapment. And you've seen that movie Inception, right
(23:02):
with Leonardo DiCaprio and uh he was in with Michael
Caine and a couple other creatures. No, yes, I did not.
I have not seen. Man, I watch it this weekend.
You want me to watch it this week Well, I
want you to watch The Wire first of all. But
if you're not, watch the Wire. But okay, I know
about in Trapping. We've seen enough in Trapping Christies. So
(23:22):
Christopher Nolan was the director behind Inception. But it's a
fantastic movie. But my dad's talking about and how you
can't provoke. You can't be used as a government agent
to provide that kind of idea. You can't plant that
inside someone's mind that hey, you should be doing this
to pay off these people to do that. And so
(23:44):
that's why you're not allowed to your dad, who for
those that don't know, guest gun dad was like the
big he's the boss. He was the boss of the
L A p. D. He knows the chief, so he
knows everything there. Um so okay, so yeah, so you
can't lead a horse to water. You have the horse
has to lead you to water. Right is that the argument? Okay? Um?
(24:06):
Interesting and according to the documentary that the way it
was presented, that's not. Um what what you're saying happened.
Happened that the Dawkins is claiming. The FBI is like,
this is what we want, and Dawkins is like, well,
I need the money, so I'll do what they want.
But I wasn't gonna do it this way. Yeah. I
mean it's like you saying, I'm gonna kill that guy.
Well I heard you say that. So I'm gonna go
(24:27):
buy the gun. I'm gonna go buy the bullets. I'm
gonna put the gun in your hand. I just need
you to pull the trigger like that. That's exactly what
it came down to. Like, wait a minute, I didn't
mean that. Literally, I didn't want to kill that person.
Well here's the gun anyway, go shoot that person. Yeah, exactly. Um,
And the documentary it's they had phone conversations between Dawkins
and some big college coaches. And uh, really the fact
(24:51):
that Sean Miller and will Wait, yeah Sean millerb Arizona,
Will Wait of l s U have not lost their job?
Is I mean? It's would think you would think anybody
watched this would say, okay, it's not even up for
debate that I can hear them talking in the documentary here. Um, now,
Sean Miller, what a snake this guy appears to be.
(25:13):
He he denied any involved me in in the bribery,
but he can clearly be hurt. Even people that can't
hear can hear Sean Miller discussing the recruitment of a
couple of players who are currently in the NBA and
I see you a little and nas Reid who's littles
with the Trailblazers, I believe in read with the Timberwolves,
(25:35):
and DeAndre Ayton too, Yeah, DeAndre Ayton the number one
pick for the Sons, and the Arizona guy. And it
was clear they hinted very openly in about compensation. And
then you Will Wade was even more in your face.
In the ls you coach on wire tap talking about
(25:56):
playing paying players to come to l s U and
saying could compensate the players better than a rookie minimum
in the n b A, that they'd give them more
than the D League if they came to bat tall
rouge to play for LSU. Here's the bigger kick in
the pants is Sean Miller's assistant book. Richardson was actually
convicted on some charges. So when you mentioned in the
(26:18):
Assistant Coaches, he was one of several that was convicted
under the FEDS. So it was I think the Southern
District of New York was the one that handled this
entire case, and he was one of them. So the
fact that you don't know what your assistant coach is
doing is beyond it's beyond belief. But the fact that
obviously you have the smoking gun wire taps, I don't
(26:39):
know what the funk the n C Double A is
thinking that they're even thinking at all. But it kind
of goes back to what Dawkins mentions at the end. Hey,
these guys are too powerful and they're two up there
making that kind of coin for the n C Double
A to have any kind of ramifications that would come
down the wire because you you didn't mention it. But
Rick Pettino, I mean he's also involved too, and you
had the brothel incident with Louisville and the recruit. It's
(27:00):
just ongoing. Yeah, absolutely, And and Dawkins the takeaway there
towards the end, and this is kind of a theme.
You know, I had heard Dawkins talk about this a
few times, but he believes that he did not break
any laws by paying players, and he the FBI assumed
(27:21):
that Dawkins was gonna play ball, right. They assumed he
was going to cooperate, and Dawkins refused. Christian Dawkins did
not rat out. He didn't really need to writ anybody
out because everything was on tape they made. That was
the other thing here. The FBI. Remember he told the
story about his iPhone and he was in the meeting
with the FBI when they were busting him, and he's
(27:41):
getting a phone call and as his phone is ringing,
one of the FBI agents, uh, one of the FBI
agents over there, his phone starts ringing. Also, that's the same,
the same setup that is unbelo. The phones were probably
a proximity wise. I don't know what you think, but
I think there were like five feet maybe even closer
than that in proximity, and his phones ringing and the
(28:05):
the FBI's phones ringing. That that was that was a
kind of Jesus moment too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah exactly.
So he ended up being arrested. He was charged with
a hindful of felonies, bribery, conspiracy, wire fraud, honest service fraud,
conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering, all of that
was on the table. So okay, So my favorite part
(28:28):
of all this, obviously, the convictions was was dreadful for him.
But I thought the silver lining with the way that
he uh defended himself and attacked the FEDS was he
used that ninety thousand dollars he had in cash from
the vaguest trip from the corrupt FBI agent to pay
his attorneys for his defense. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. He
(28:51):
had said that money that the FBI thought was going
to the coaches, he had just kept it at his
house and he had cash piling up, and he used
that money he claims to pay off his his attorneys.
Here and the quote which is that we call it
the money quote here, Um that there's no law in
(29:11):
the world that says that breaking an n c A
rule is a federal felony. There's no law that says that.
And they twisted the law to make it work right
and and so this is the argument here, and your
old man would probably agree with me on this, that
law enforcement they've got loaded dice, meaning that if there's
(29:33):
no crime and they really want to get you on
a crime, they've got in their back pocket, especially the FBI,
I don't know about it, the l A, the local police,
but they've got wire fraud and tax evasion and those
are always in my life, those are the things that
they get you. Because wire fraud is you doing a
criminal act using electronic communications. Uh they have you know,
(29:56):
interstate commerce, they call it. Right, So you communicate using
a phone, call of facts, an email, a text, social
media posting, any of that is considered if you you're
doing something on there that is deemed illegal. It is
all under the umbrella of wire fraud, as I understand it.
So in the modern world, how does one do anything
(30:19):
without using either a phone, an email, a text, or
social media messaging. That's how the world communicates. So if
you do anything on those platforms that is deemed untoward,
you can be charged with a crime. And I hated
the fact that when he got popped by the Feds,
he was in a hotel room and the female federal
agent uh no longer undercover, said hey, you can make
(30:43):
a deal with us, and we can. We can obviously
work some things out, but you need to to basically
spit out what you have on all these coaches and
all these programs and these athletes. It says, I want
an attorney. And as soon as he said that, I
think the biggest chicken ship moment of the DOC menories
the fact that these federal agents come in armed to
(31:03):
the teeth, not just one guy, but several. It was
like a tactical unit came in with their M fors,
their a K s or whatever they had. It brought
me back to when Roger Stone was basically perp wocked
out of his home. It's a seventy year old man
in his pajamas in the in the wake of his sleep,
and all of a sudden, you got these armed federal
(31:26):
agents coming in, twenty thirty of them, and all of
a sudden, CNN just magically shows up unprovoked by anybody
or tipped off, and these guys are threatening to bring
down Roger Stone. The same thing happened to Dawkins, and
it was just straight intimidation and it was just supreme bullshit. Yeah,
it's like you you could have used a butter knife
(31:48):
and instead you used the samurai sword. Yes, you could
have had a water gun and you had a machine
gun instead. You know, it's it's that kind of argument.
But this has always been the for show, right, It's
for putting on a show and showing you you didn't
make a deal with the FBI. Okay, we got seventeen
guys with guns pointed at your head because you didn't
(32:09):
make the deal, and and that's the way that it's
going to go down. Um So, so anyway, the part
of the documentary they indicated that there was a deal,
that that they had the playbook I think that was
the quote, right, They had the playbook of how corruption
happened in college sports. And so it turns out, and
(32:30):
you referred to the ending, not liking the ending there
that none of the big name coaches, not Arizona, Sean Miller,
not l s U. S. Will wait. I guess you
could say Patino lost his job. So that was a
win for the FBI. But they didn't bring down the
college corruption. They didn't end college corruption. They they sent
some low wrong people, some assistant coaches. They gave them
(32:51):
a screwdriver and and that was it. They went to jail,
some of them. Some of them didn't even go to jail.
But it was a big nothing burger, and they had
this big Alan news commerce, which we talked about on
the radio show when it happened, and they made it
seem you know, the southern quarter of Manhattan there they
got everybody, hey, oh my, we've we're gonna get justice,
(33:12):
and that justice. Yeah. The worst part for for Dawkins
was he got I believe it was eighteen months when
he was convicted on all three. See, he was charged
with I think thirteen counts and he only got convicted
on three of the charges. One of them was wire fraud,
another one's conspiracy to commit wire fraud. I forget what
(33:32):
the other one was. But Monice sawed he got probation. Uh.
There was a couple other guys that got slaps on
the wrist. But as you mentioned, hey, he even alluded
to it to you talked about high school to college basketball.
What about high school to college football? Fox Sports Radio
has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch
(33:53):
all of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com
and within the I Heart Radio app search f s
R to listen live. Yeah, yeah, that wasn't even part
of this. But if you think about if you're one
of these hot shot, cannon armed quarterbacks who is projected
to be an NFL player, and you've got Alabama, Clemson,
(34:15):
Ohio State, all these big powerhouse schools that are trying
to get you, you're telling me that the same stuff
is not going on there, that there's uh, you know,
I'll scratch your back, you scratch my back, Come on, way,
of course it's going absolutely Now one other addendum here.
I loved the part of the end Dawkins. It turns
(34:37):
out while he was going to federal court to fight this,
he would go to court in the morning, and then
when he was done with that, I guess it was
that at lunch was he doing At lunch he would
run over, he took a taxi or an uber appropriate enough,
maybe it was a lift, and he would go and
meet and he is now in the record business. He
(34:59):
is now he's making music and he's signing acts and music.
He was, while on federal trial, was working on his
next job. How great is that? It was great? And
the fact that he did because he was looking at
the landscape of what he can do for employment with
a felony conviction on his record, and he thought. The
(35:19):
first thing was, well, music doesn't care. Yeah, I've been
served right, Yeah, absolutely correct. Uh. And then the reaction
of this, it seems like they're the people that are
fully invested in college sports think well, we shouldn't watch
this documentary. This guy's a convicted felon. It doesn't matter
what he says, and they're like trying to downplay the
whole thing like it was all nothing. In college sports
(35:41):
is still still pure and innocent. And I'm like, really
like my my entire life working in sports media. When
I first started in Los Angeles back in the day,
and I heard stories and even before that about Sam Gilbert. Now,
if you don't know who Sam Gilbert is, look him up.
He was a car dealer in l a who funded
(36:04):
the Wizard of Westwood John Wooden. Right, I I getink
he owned a construction business, Sam Gilbert, but he he
wouldn't supply cars and all that stuff. And uh, he
was the money guy behind the greatest dynasty in college
basketball history, the nineteen sixties u c l A basketball team,
(36:26):
and and uh and and he he was involved in
I think the what's now known as the bicycle casino. UM.
He he had some some business dealings with that. But
but anyway, he would supply cars and all kinds of
other stuff to u c l A recruits. UM took
money out of his instruction company. And John Wooden, who
(36:48):
has done many you know, in his day, he did
many books about being holier than now and doing things
the right way and you know, make every day your masterpiece.
He he just looked the other way. He look the
other way while the money flowed out from Sam Gilbert.
And let's just say it hasn't stopped since Sam Gilbert.
(37:09):
And he's been dead since the eighties. And I think
he was banished in uh in the early eighties from
from being able to pay out money. But there's always
been some version of Sam Gilbert involved in college sports.
I mean, but happens everywhere too, and every single sport.
So I mean, you either got to be completely naive
or just oblivious to the fact that these guys and
(37:31):
some females are getting paid. There's so much money out there,
and of course if you're making millions beyond millions of
I mean in the documentary they talked about smaller major
programs like Creighton shelling out over a hundred thousand dollars
for for prospects and Creighton there's a rip about Creighton.
And so when you have all that money that's involved
(37:53):
and you're invested, I mean, Dan Watson brought up a
great point because if you're if you're a shoe company
and you're giving U. C. L a. A Or Louisville
or Texas or Southern cal a certain amount of money, Yeah,
you control what they do. I mean, long story short,
you control how they distribute, how they coach, how they recruit,
(38:13):
all those things that comes into play. Of course. Yeah. Absolutely.
And then one final final point in all this, as
we talked about the scheme our big documentary review here,
I gave it an eight out of ten. Guestcon says
a six only a six out of ten. Um is
when when when you look at the scheme and you
(38:36):
go through point by point and all this stuff, and uh,
you know what was I guess I'll ask you this,
Like you said you were upset, what were you upset about? This?
Only gave it a six? I gave it an eight.
I thought it was well done, the production value was
good on this. It was obviously one sided, But why
did you only go six? So my biggest reason for
(38:56):
this is because Dawkins was represented by an attorney by
the I think his name was Steve Haney, and they
mentioned it a little bit. But my problem is is
when the when the government made its case against Dawkins
and against everyone else that was involved, is that de'angelo
was never called to testify, and when Haney subpoenaed to
(39:19):
him to testify, he was not available or they did
not allow him to testify. And I thought there could
have been more to that back story, because you're talking
about not only being accused, but you should have obviously
the right to to face your accuser, which in this
case it's the Southern District of New York, but also
(39:40):
the witnesses that were involved. Well, he was the key witness,
He was the he was the motor behind this entire
thing getting underweight. He was the key broker to to
sod being introduced to obviously two Dawkins, introducing him to
other players that were involved, to the coaches, to the
assistant coaches, everybody else that came in. It was all
general it off of D'Angelo the number one key informant
(40:03):
or they undercover FBI agent, and he wasn't able to
testify in court. Like I thought, there was more to
that that should have been done. Obviously, at the end
they disclosed that the FBI didn't make any comments on this.
The n C double A didn't either, but with the
way that they were doing, that's investigative journalism involved with Dawkins.
I thought there was more that you could have peeled
(40:23):
off of that onion that would have helped. That's true.
So there's two things here and we'll wrap it up
with this. Either A, the FBI realized they had nothing
because Dawkins was corrupt, and that if they had gone
forward and tried to take down Sean Miller and Will Wade,
that would have come out more somehow in that situation.
And they said, well, D'Angelo, um, he was he was dirty,
(40:46):
so you can't believe anything that he did while he
was involved in this investigation. There's either that or the
other Deep State Illuminati is that Rick Pattino knows people,
um we Wade I'm assuming in the South knows some
people down in the Bayou. And Sean Miller has been
a big college basketball These guys, uh scratched the back
(41:09):
of somebody who needed their back scratched, and it just
kind of went away. But the fact that these guys
come out here touting their record and how seven percent
of their cases result in a conviction and they carry
the heavy hammer and then they I mean, they were
over zealous with how they attacked Dawkins and then he
got off with what what it was like a slap
(41:30):
on the wrist. If you're gonna be that ambitious and
you want to make a career case out of this,
then you need to chop off the head. You don't
go after the fingers. Yeah. Yeah, it was disheartening considering
how much money taxpayer money was spent and uh, next
to nothing, next to nothing. And it didn't make for
a good documentary though, So we got a good documentary
(41:51):
to watch during this two hours time again. It's called
The Scheme. It's on HBO. Check it out. You want
to know we gave you all the good stuff, but
there it is all right, thank you podcast all weekend.
We are here for you again. Follow us on social media.
I am on Twitter at Ben Maller. My Instagram page
is Ben Maller on Fox and our Facebook page. We
(42:13):
get a lot of questions. We'll have another podcast sometime
this weekend with grab Bag and questions and answers and
all that. And those are questions that are submitted on Facebook,
which is Ben Mallard's show on Facebook and guest gons
on social media. Not on Facebook though, you know, thank god.
I'm on Instagram at Dave Gascon and twitters at David J.
(42:35):
Just the letter J David J. Gascon. Alright, have a
great today. Whatever you do today, don't well you can't
really do anything, so don't do anything just to hang around.
Just don't do nothing. Alright, have a have a good
We'll talk to you next time.
If you thought four hours a day, minutes a week
was enough, I think again. He's the last remnants of
the old republic, a sole fashion of fairness. He treats
crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as the rich
pill poppers in the penthouse the clearing House of Hot
takes break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with
(00:23):
Ben Maller starts right now. That it does, and I
hope you're doing well and happy social distancing weekend which
is upon us as we present to you another edition
of The Fifth Hour with Ben Mallard. Bonus coverage during
the pandemic, and if this continues here, I guess we'll
just do three shows a week for forever. But four
(00:46):
hours not enough of the Overnight Show. We are proud
to be in the air everywhere throwing audio tantrums via
the vast power of the I Heart Podcasting Network, the
Global Reach Podcasting and this podcast is originally was heard
weekly and now it's heard every weekend, multiple days, Friday,
(01:09):
Saturday and Sunday. You get your podcast right here and
as always, for better or worse, I am joined by
the gascon Man, the gag on Man, David Gascon. We're man,
we're just loud, proud. I think about my friend uh
(01:33):
In in Cincinnati, Justin, the guy that sprays and praise
his uh his his viruses all over the place. But Ben,
we're we're rocking it here. From March to April, we're
up sixty eight percent. We are the hottest podcast within
the Fox Sports Radio umbrella right now. We're kicking and screaming. Well,
(01:53):
it's very nice that people are listening to the podcast.
Of course, we have done more podcasts. The numbers are
skewed quite a bit. We were doing one a week
and now we're doing three a week, so the numbers
have skyrocketed up, not to not to deflate the balloon,
of course, but fair In September, October, November, we were
doing Benny Versus the Penny as well. Yeah, that's sure.
(02:14):
We were doing multiple podcast then. And uh it's it's
awkward though, because people are listening more in part because
of what's going on. There's not a lot of new
content out there, so people are looking for anything, even
audio content that's brand new, and everyone's losing their marbles,
it seems like because what's going on, and so I
(02:36):
it's this is an awkward situation, but we'll we'll take
it um. Now. The real test is when things get
back to normal. If you knuckleheads still listen, that's the
real test. Uh. And we'll find out how how much
you like to show once things get back to normal.
I just had a thought in my head here you
mentioned Justin and Cincinnati that inspired me. I had an
(02:57):
epiphany the other day when I was walking to work.
As I walked to work down starting environment and I
was walking from my bedroom down the hallway, and then
I had to make a left turn into the studio
from my bedroom, and then I had to walk in
the studio, walk into the chair, I had to sit down,
I had to turn the computer on, turn on the
big radio box that I have here. But in that time,
(03:19):
the very short walk that I have to work, I thought,
you know, Justin has always been the biggest bad guy
on the Mallar Militia, the most negative guy. But I
I believe that Mr Nice Guy and Angry Bill are
giving him a run for his money, a legitimate run
for bragging rights in the entire cosmos of the Malla Militia,
(03:44):
for being the most negative person that contacts us during
the show. Well to be fair, though they're also divided
blue versus red, or in this case, two blues and
one red. Yeah, well that's true because you've got angry
Bill who calls up a couple of times a week
with his horseplay, who thinks these are end times, that
this is armageddon, it's some kind of biblical prophecy, and
(04:05):
we're all dead and life will never come back to normal.
And he's like the same mindset, Like there's certain guys
that just think that life will never ever change, that
whatever is going on right now is going to continue.
It's called being a prisoner of the moment. Gast go on,
that's the term. And these people and I have all people.
(04:26):
You know, we're both guest gone. You're similar to me
that you have a reputation of the business of being
very negative, that that you're you're looking at the bad
part of life. But in this case, I have somehow
morphed into Mr Positive, which is very uncomfortable for me.
And as I've said several times on the radio show,
I love the fact that people are getting very upset
(04:46):
when I say positive things. I haven't gone full Clay
Travis because Clay has taken at next level, but I
am optimistic. If people get upset, they get upset with me.
It's it's crazy. The thing is is that's lost in
a lot of people. As you have perspective and you
have experience. So when you talk about some of these
things that have gone on in life, you have the
(05:07):
advantage of having seen or heard or been in the
middle of certain situations. You have the opportunity to see
it from not only the entry but also the exit.
Or a lot of these people are only experienced in
these situations for the first time ever, or they were
just completely oblivious to things in the past. Well that's
true to a point. But Mr. Nice Guy and Angry
(05:30):
Bill or or they're they're older than me. They've been
around longer than I have. They've lived life, They've seen things.
I just remember back to I guess the comp for
this would be nine eleven, And I remember after nine eleven,
people are like, oh man, it's you know, we're gonna
be It's never gonna be the same, It's gonna be yeah,
you know, things A little things are different, like going
to the airport is much different than before nine eleven,
(05:51):
and there's more security at certain things. But relatively speaking,
things are pretty much the same as they were before.
There's a even more to mean this is but they're
they're mild inconvenience. But see, here's the thing that I
will agree with those guys on is a simple fact
that now you have companies that want to track you.
They want to put chips inside of you and track
(06:13):
you and find out like your status, find out if
you had contracted the coronavirus, if you are if you
are healthy, if you have recovered that. Those things I'm
not comfortable with at all. And now people are talking
more and more about five G and how that's coming
into you want to go full? You want to go
full Alex Jones like you want to go down that. Yeah,
(06:36):
but we have a lot of time, and so there's
things that do worry me. Thankfully here in California. And
I know this is not in allowed kind of way,
but there are a lot of people here in this state,
this great state then that are locked and loaded, which
is great because if ever they came a time or
they needed to push back in this republic, I'm fully
(06:56):
confident that California would rise above the rest. Uh well
not you listen, there's there's many places that would rise
above me and I. I've talked about this on the podcast.
The last couple of weeks I go for a walks.
I haven't been for a walk this week because it's
been raining in l A. And I haven't been able
to get out of my house, which blows. But that's
a different problem. But every time I walked by, there
(07:19):
a couple of gun shots. I live in the interesting
part of town. I guess there's a couple of gun
shots here. And it's like the It's like the Okay
Corral out there, people just lining up to buy guns.
Every every time I've walked by these guns stores, it's
like the old west Man. People are loading up, trying
to get ready for whatever they think, uh is coming,
whatever they believe is coming there. And So now is
(07:40):
this a perfect and proper segue to what we're getting
into today? Uh? Yeah, I mean it could be. Uh
it is time for ready for it? Another Mound film
review we uh So, I did some commercials for the
(08:01):
documentary The Scheme, which is currently broadcast on HBO that's
Home Box Office. I watched it on HBO's on demand
feature watched it a few days ago, and it is
about college basketball I loved it. We're gonna get into
some of the meat and potatoes of this. It follows
around this guy named Christian Dawkins who was in the
(08:26):
fifth grade. This guy was in the fifth grade. He
read some book from Dan Wetzel about college basketball and
corporate money and corruption of young people. And that book
resonated so much. You know, he's in that golden era
of your life where you read something and that just
translates your life, you have an epiphany. And he decided
(08:50):
right then that he wanted to get into becoming a
basketball kind of agent, that kind of guy. And that's
how the story starts, and it ends up with the
fbo I being involved. We'll get into some of it
before we give the Mallard film review. Now, normally you
would wait till the end to say what the grade
is of the podcast, you know, on the podcast, but um,
(09:11):
I'm gonna actually give my my number grade one to
ten with ten being mcmillions. I enjoyed Tiger King guest
Guns to Elite is to watch Tiger King's two above that.
But I I eat give the scheme on HBO. I'm
giving in an aid out of ten on the Mallard
(09:32):
scale of documentary. Now, it's not as good as mcmillions
and some of the other stuff. It is obviously one side.
It's that's the one thing we didn't hear from the
other side. Um. There the reasons for that. We'll get
into and we talk about the podcast, but I give
it an aid out of ten, and I guess you
watched it. What is the guestscon score. I'm gonna give
(09:53):
it a little bit lower. I'm gonna give it a six.
There was a lot of things they felt that were
left out. And I also think that it really came
flat towards the end when when we were waiting for
that build up, it just never came. And I thought
the way that it intro it was fantastic. But as
we'll get into, I just thought the ending just it
(10:14):
left me wanting a lot more. And I just thought,
be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Meller
Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific on
Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app. All right, well,
let's get into it. So for those that do not
know the story, we talked about this on the radio.
It was a big story in sports media. The FBI
(10:35):
was bringing down college sports. The jig was up right,
all the debate and bickering that we've had over the
years about student athletes, and uh, it turns out that
these guys, many of the top basketball players, and let's
be honest, football players, have been getting money under the
table forever and as long as you can remember. And
(10:57):
so it's technically illegal to do some of that stuff,
depending on how you do it. And so this scandal
was supposed to bring down college basketball and it began
with Christian Dawkins. The FBI UH investigated this. They had
wire taps, they were listening into dawkins phone conversations. And
(11:20):
this was supposed to be a pioneering corruption scandal and
as guests gone referred to at the end, it fizzled out.
But it did bring down a bunch of assistant coaches
and low level players in this. And so Dawkins, the guy,
Christian Dawkins, who was the star of the documentary and
the star of the story, Uh, he had a sports agency.
(11:44):
Well he started out in the fifth grade. He was
like that, I guess we should start with that because
this guy was a hustler. Some of the highlights of
this thing. I love people that just kind of go
for it and you don't need a formal education. You
just know what you want to do when you go
for it. Christian Dawkins came from a Michigan family that
had been very successful in basketball locally at the high
(12:05):
school level. He started his own high school basketball scouting
publication when he was eleven years old. Guest, because how
great is that this church hustling? I love it? Coaches
six hundred dollars for a subscription. That was fantastic. Forty
year old coaches are paying eleven year old all this
money for a subscription. How great is that he was making?
(12:26):
He was making buco bucks. I thought. The best thing
that he did with that publication. Two is he actually
ranked himself numerous times, which is what you must do
when you're eleven years old, right, I mean, why why
would you do something like that? Uh, if you're eleven,
you gotta rank yourself, all right. He also a little
bit after that he organized his own traveling team. Um,
(12:51):
and he did that he was he was in high school,
and he put his own tournament. He had an entire
fucking tournament that this kid put together while he was
in high school. Like, what do you call what's the
Dorian's cause. I thing it was Dorian's cause whatever, But
that was based on his brother that passed away from
a from a heart attack at the age of fourteen. Yeah,
that was sad. He he died during a game when
(13:13):
he told his brother point Blake when it was at
the free throw line, I feel tired, and he collapsed
on the court and they tried resuscitating him and then
they couldn't do So, Yeah, that was sad. His parents
weren't there. They were at a wedding or something like that,
so it was sad. So but this guy, Christian Doctors,
he didn't attend college. He ends up working because he
had some connections already from his tournament and stuff. He
(13:35):
starts working for this agent, Andy Miller, who was featured
quite a bit in the documentary. He then ends up
successfully and he's still not even you know, not even
like twenty years old. He starts recruiting current NBA players
are that are now in the NBA before they were
in the NBA, and he signed Alfred Payton who's had
(13:59):
a decent NBA crew, Rodney Hood who's played in the NBA.
That was the there was like the first two guys
he signed NBA players um Fred Vanvlee. They they interviewed
Fred Vanvley to the Raptors. He was they interviewed him
in this So the guy was very good. Christian Dawkins. Uh,
(14:19):
I don't know how would you say he's the gift
for gab. I guess would be one way to look
at it. I think two things. One is he he's
relatable and some of the players even said at point blank,
it's a skin color. He said a lot of the
guys that came into those rooms, if they weren't black,
they weren't dealing with them. And I think Van Fleet
was one of the guys who actually talked about Miller
(14:40):
and he said, yeah, he did all the legal stuff,
but it was Dawkins who handled everything prior to that,
and he's the one that crafted the relationship. He wouldn't
have done business with Lee had it not been for Dawkins. Yeah,
so race was a part of this, but Dawkins also
seemed like we've all known people like this, whether they're black, white,
or whatever, who are just great each man, you know,
(15:00):
and they just able to they got diarrhea of the mouth,
and they're sweet talkers and he's got that going on.
But see, here's the thing. This goes all the way
back to what you mentioned with how he started his publication.
Was this kid was all over the place. He was
going to all these games, he was going to these practices,
so he was in sight and in mind, like he
was around these guys all the bleep in time. And
(15:22):
so when you're around like that and you have people
buttering you up and then all of a sudden writing
about you in publications and getting all that juice from
these coaches and then adds your credibility, and then you
can show that to these prospective young student athletes that
are hoping to go to the D one level. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
for sure. I mean it was very interesting to see
how this works. Like I've known some of these people
(15:44):
over my years being around when I used to go
to NBA games all the time, and these guys would
hang out at the NBA games also, so I've I've
known a few of them, but I didn't really know
like the meat and potatoes of what it was. Like.
I had some ideas and this, you know, this is
his story, so it's probably I'm not the same for everybody.
But it's Christian Dawkins story, which is I would think
similar to a lot of what goes on. And then
(16:05):
we had our first scandal in this documentary, which was
a reverence and I vaguely remember using this as a
tease on the radio, and I don't even remember doing
a monologue about it, but it was known as uber
Gate and Christiandwkins. That was a scandal involving him a
couple of years back in seventeen and he lost his job.
(16:28):
There was a big headline that was all over the
internet at the time saying that an NBA they called
him an agent, right, and they said he had stolen
forty thou dollars in uber rides or something like that
he had charged them to I think it was Alfred
Payton's credit card. Yes, But here's the weird thing about this,
as you know this, when you have a company website,
if you go to any law firm or any kind
(16:50):
of PR firm, and you have entities that are involved,
and you have employees, usually gonna have the managing partner,
You're gonna have the founder of the CEO, of the president,
and they're gonna have all the underlings as well, and
you'll have names and titles and probably a bioattached, right,
But Dawkins didn't have any of that. He was on
(17:10):
the company website, but just his name. There was no
title underneath it, no bio, nothing of that. So he
was they had guys in there that classified him as
like a quote unquote runner and yeah, yeah, which is
like it's like when you get into the movie business.
You know, you're you're hanging out bringing food and going
to the store, and you're you're helping out the people
(17:33):
on the set, but you're not really like you don't
have a defined role, right as I understand what your
worked in the movies, but as when I understand the
pas are like that too a lot. Yeah, yeah, we
used to have interns, and I'm not allowed to have
interns anymore, guests on it at our job, but years
ago I had interns with some of them very successful interns.
By the way, You've gone on and on great things,
(17:54):
but I I'm no longer allowed to teach the younger generation.
There's a reason for that, alright, us are you you're
making that up? That's a lie. Back to the documentary,
this guy Christian Dawkins were talking about it's pretty much
all about him and his buddy, and they were the
main players that were interviewed in this. So the let's
get to the meat and potatoes here. So Dawkins claimed
(18:15):
he did not want to bring in college coaches like that.
The FBI's intent was clear that they wanted to bring
down the big name coaches, and so Christian Dawkins, at
least that's the way the documentary presented. So Dawkins joined
some investors, this guy Jeff de'angelo and his partner Jill Bailey,
(18:38):
a couple of good names there. Turns out they were
the undercover FBI agents who were part of this. And
then they had the financial advisor Munish sod is that
his name? To get that right? I got that right? Um,
And he was like the money guy. He was worked
at a bank and he had connections to the cash
and all that. Yeah, he was a financial advisor and
(18:59):
yeah so um so he he I guess that he's
the guy. Eventually later on he gave funds to Mark
ll Folts, Kyle Kuzma's agent, some other people uh as well.
But in the documentary, Dawkins talks about how the guy
who was the FBI agent. D'Angelo was the one who
(19:22):
was pushing to pay college coaches in order to steer
players to sign with their company, and the way it
was presenting the documentary was that he didn't want to
do it, and Dawkins made a compelling argument. What I
felt was a compelling argument. Obviously, he's biased, he's he's
part of this, but his argument was he knew how
the game was played guess gun, and the way the
(19:44):
game was played was not involved the college coaches. That instead,
it's just a transaction between the families and the players.
The coaches are aware of it, and the coaches might
set it up, but ultimately it it's a relationship between
an agency and the player, which makes sense logically because
(20:07):
ultimately that player is going to leave college, whether they
go to Louisville, North Carolina, u C, l A, Duke,
or wherever, and they're not gonna have a relationship with
that school most likely other than just when they get
introduced in an NBA game they say their name that
they went to Duke or uh, you know, Oregon or
Washington or Minnesota or something like that. But they want
(20:29):
that guy's a client, so that personal relationship. But they
would think that they're they're gambling that would carry over
to when they get to the NBA and make the
real money. And that's where I was confused on all
this is because if they wanted to uproot the scandal
that was in college basketball, I mean making that linear
connection from from a broker to a player with a
(20:51):
coach as they I don't want to say in between them,
but just as that kind of conduit. I don't know.
I don't understand why his motive would be like at
and Dawkins was sniffing that thing out, which is intense.
And there was at one point where he actually had
a friend in the d a's office that was connected
to the FBI and they ran a background check on D'Angelo.
(21:13):
So it wasn't like he didn't trust what was going on,
but he knew that something just wasn't adding up. Be
sure to catch live editions of The Ben Maller Show
weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific. Yeah. Yeah,
I mean it was. It was one of those things.
The way it was presented was like, hey, he this guy,
Christian Dawkins knew how the game was played. He knew
(21:33):
that here's what you do you find the player, you
pay off the family, do what you gotta do. You
got the player. But this guy the FBI agents, so
like when we gotta bring the coaches down, and so
Dawkins ultimate is like to appease them because he wanted
their money and he thought he didn't realize their FBI
agents they were just And that's the other thing. The
FBI spent how much money they were just handing money
six figures. Yeah. The most yeah, the most alarming thing
(21:56):
was the fact that these guys took money from federal
agents are taxpayers money, and they spent a boatload of
it on an actual yacht and in Vegas, gambling, going
to strip clubs, you know, drinking, parting the whole fucking
nine yards. And I'm like, this is absolutely bogus how
this all went down. And later on not don't bear
(22:18):
the lead, my mind, it's not really the lead. Um.
Later on they determined that this guy, Jeff d'antel, who left,
he had been one of the big players in this
as an FBI agent, and then he vanished. They said
he had a sick relative in Italy. But it turns
out that he had been spending some of that FBI
our money in Vegas. Apparently he was having a grand
(22:41):
old time gambling and boozing and debauchery there in Vegas,
misappropriation of government funds as they would call it. Ben Mallory.
Now see, I was asking the chief about this, and
I think you guys should chat about this a little
bit longer too. But part of this goes to his
argument about entrapment. And you've seen that movie Inception, right
(23:02):
with Leonardo DiCaprio and uh he was in with Michael
Caine and a couple other creatures. No, yes, I did not.
I have not seen. Man, I watch it this weekend.
You want me to watch it this week Well, I
want you to watch The Wire first of all. But
if you're not, watch the Wire. But okay, I know
about in Trapping. We've seen enough in Trapping Christies. So
(23:22):
Christopher Nolan was the director behind Inception. But it's a
fantastic movie. But my dad's talking about and how you
can't provoke. You can't be used as a government agent
to provide that kind of idea. You can't plant that
inside someone's mind that hey, you should be doing this
to pay off these people to do that. And so
(23:44):
that's why you're not allowed to your dad, who for
those that don't know, guest gun dad was like the
big he's the boss. He was the boss of the
L A p. D. He knows the chief, so he
knows everything there. Um so okay, so yeah, so you
can't lead a horse to water. You have the horse
has to lead you to water. Right is that the argument? Okay? Um?
(24:06):
Interesting and according to the documentary that the way it
was presented, that's not. Um what what you're saying happened.
Happened that the Dawkins is claiming. The FBI is like,
this is what we want, and Dawkins is like, well,
I need the money, so I'll do what they want.
But I wasn't gonna do it this way. Yeah. I
mean it's like you saying, I'm gonna kill that guy.
Well I heard you say that. So I'm gonna go
(24:27):
buy the gun. I'm gonna go buy the bullets. I'm
gonna put the gun in your hand. I just need
you to pull the trigger like that. That's exactly what
it came down to. Like, wait a minute, I didn't
mean that. Literally, I didn't want to kill that person.
Well here's the gun anyway, go shoot that person. Yeah, exactly. Um,
And the documentary it's they had phone conversations between Dawkins
and some big college coaches. And uh, really the fact
(24:51):
that Sean Miller and will Wait, yeah Sean millerb Arizona,
Will Wait of l s U have not lost their job?
Is I mean? It's would think you would think anybody
watched this would say, okay, it's not even up for
debate that I can hear them talking in the documentary here. Um, now,
Sean Miller, what a snake this guy appears to be.
(25:13):
He he denied any involved me in in the bribery,
but he can clearly be hurt. Even people that can't
hear can hear Sean Miller discussing the recruitment of a
couple of players who are currently in the NBA and
I see you a little and nas Reid who's littles
with the Trailblazers, I believe in read with the Timberwolves,
(25:35):
and DeAndre Ayton too, Yeah, DeAndre Ayton the number one
pick for the Sons, and the Arizona guy. And it
was clear they hinted very openly in about compensation. And
then you Will Wade was even more in your face.
In the ls you coach on wire tap talking about
(25:56):
playing paying players to come to l s U and
saying could compensate the players better than a rookie minimum
in the n b A, that they'd give them more
than the D League if they came to bat tall
rouge to play for LSU. Here's the bigger kick in
the pants is Sean Miller's assistant book. Richardson was actually
convicted on some charges. So when you mentioned in the
(26:18):
Assistant Coaches, he was one of several that was convicted
under the FEDS. So it was I think the Southern
District of New York was the one that handled this
entire case, and he was one of them. So the
fact that you don't know what your assistant coach is
doing is beyond it's beyond belief. But the fact that
obviously you have the smoking gun wire taps, I don't
(26:39):
know what the funk the n C Double A is
thinking that they're even thinking at all. But it kind
of goes back to what Dawkins mentions at the end. Hey,
these guys are too powerful and they're two up there
making that kind of coin for the n C Double
A to have any kind of ramifications that would come
down the wire because you you didn't mention it. But
Rick Pettino, I mean he's also involved too, and you
had the brothel incident with Louisville and the recruit. It's
(27:00):
just ongoing. Yeah, absolutely, And and Dawkins the takeaway there
towards the end, and this is kind of a theme.
You know, I had heard Dawkins talk about this a
few times, but he believes that he did not break
any laws by paying players, and he the FBI assumed
(27:21):
that Dawkins was gonna play ball, right. They assumed he
was going to cooperate, and Dawkins refused. Christian Dawkins did
not rat out. He didn't really need to writ anybody
out because everything was on tape they made. That was
the other thing here. The FBI. Remember he told the
story about his iPhone and he was in the meeting
with the FBI when they were busting him, and he's
(27:41):
getting a phone call and as his phone is ringing,
one of the FBI agents, uh, one of the FBI
agents over there, his phone starts ringing. Also, that's the same,
the same setup that is unbelo. The phones were probably
a proximity wise. I don't know what you think, but
I think there were like five feet maybe even closer
than that in proximity, and his phones ringing and the
(28:05):
the FBI's phones ringing. That that was that was a
kind of Jesus moment too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah exactly.
So he ended up being arrested. He was charged with
a hindful of felonies, bribery, conspiracy, wire fraud, honest service fraud,
conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering, all of that
was on the table. So okay, So my favorite part
(28:28):
of all this, obviously, the convictions was was dreadful for him.
But I thought the silver lining with the way that
he uh defended himself and attacked the FEDS was he
used that ninety thousand dollars he had in cash from
the vaguest trip from the corrupt FBI agent to pay
his attorneys for his defense. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. He
(28:51):
had said that money that the FBI thought was going
to the coaches, he had just kept it at his
house and he had cash piling up, and he used
that money he claims to pay off his his attorneys.
Here and the quote which is that we call it
the money quote here, Um that there's no law in
(29:11):
the world that says that breaking an n c A
rule is a federal felony. There's no law that says that.
And they twisted the law to make it work right
and and so this is the argument here, and your
old man would probably agree with me on this, that
law enforcement they've got loaded dice, meaning that if there's
(29:33):
no crime and they really want to get you on
a crime, they've got in their back pocket, especially the FBI,
I don't know about it, the l A, the local police,
but they've got wire fraud and tax evasion and those
are always in my life, those are the things that
they get you. Because wire fraud is you doing a
criminal act using electronic communications. Uh they have you know,
(29:56):
interstate commerce, they call it. Right, So you communicate using
a phone, call of facts, an email, a text, social
media posting, any of that is considered if you you're
doing something on there that is deemed illegal. It is
all under the umbrella of wire fraud, as I understand it.
So in the modern world, how does one do anything
(30:19):
without using either a phone, an email, a text, or
social media messaging. That's how the world communicates. So if
you do anything on those platforms that is deemed untoward,
you can be charged with a crime. And I hated
the fact that when he got popped by the Feds,
he was in a hotel room and the female federal
agent uh no longer undercover, said hey, you can make
(30:43):
a deal with us, and we can. We can obviously
work some things out, but you need to to basically
spit out what you have on all these coaches and
all these programs and these athletes. It says, I want
an attorney. And as soon as he said that, I
think the biggest chicken ship moment of the DOC menories
the fact that these federal agents come in armed to
(31:03):
the teeth, not just one guy, but several. It was
like a tactical unit came in with their M fors,
their a K s or whatever they had. It brought
me back to when Roger Stone was basically perp wocked
out of his home. It's a seventy year old man
in his pajamas in the in the wake of his sleep,
and all of a sudden, you got these armed federal
(31:26):
agents coming in, twenty thirty of them, and all of
a sudden, CNN just magically shows up unprovoked by anybody
or tipped off, and these guys are threatening to bring
down Roger Stone. The same thing happened to Dawkins, and
it was just straight intimidation and it was just supreme bullshit. Yeah,
it's like you you could have used a butter knife
(31:48):
and instead you used the samurai sword. Yes, you could
have had a water gun and you had a machine
gun instead. You know, it's it's that kind of argument.
But this has always been the for show, right, It's
for putting on a show and showing you you didn't
make a deal with the FBI. Okay, we got seventeen
guys with guns pointed at your head because you didn't
(32:09):
make the deal, and and that's the way that it's
going to go down. Um So, so anyway, the part
of the documentary they indicated that there was a deal,
that that they had the playbook I think that was
the quote, right, They had the playbook of how corruption
happened in college sports. And so it turns out, and
(32:30):
you referred to the ending, not liking the ending there
that none of the big name coaches, not Arizona, Sean Miller,
not l s U. S. Will wait. I guess you
could say Patino lost his job. So that was a
win for the FBI. But they didn't bring down the
college corruption. They didn't end college corruption. They they sent
some low wrong people, some assistant coaches. They gave them
(32:51):
a screwdriver and and that was it. They went to jail,
some of them. Some of them didn't even go to jail.
But it was a big nothing burger, and they had
this big Alan news commerce, which we talked about on
the radio show when it happened, and they made it
seem you know, the southern quarter of Manhattan there they
got everybody, hey, oh my, we've we're gonna get justice,
(33:12):
and that justice. Yeah. The worst part for for Dawkins
was he got I believe it was eighteen months when
he was convicted on all three. See, he was charged
with I think thirteen counts and he only got convicted
on three of the charges. One of them was wire fraud,
another one's conspiracy to commit wire fraud. I forget what
(33:32):
the other one was. But Monice sawed he got probation. Uh.
There was a couple other guys that got slaps on
the wrist. But as you mentioned, hey, he even alluded
to it to you talked about high school to college basketball.
What about high school to college football? Fox Sports Radio
has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch
(33:53):
all of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com
and within the I Heart Radio app search f s
R to listen live. Yeah, yeah, that wasn't even part
of this. But if you think about if you're one
of these hot shot, cannon armed quarterbacks who is projected
to be an NFL player, and you've got Alabama, Clemson,
(34:15):
Ohio State, all these big powerhouse schools that are trying
to get you, you're telling me that the same stuff
is not going on there, that there's uh, you know,
I'll scratch your back, you scratch my back, Come on, way,
of course it's going absolutely Now one other addendum here.
I loved the part of the end Dawkins. It turns
(34:37):
out while he was going to federal court to fight this,
he would go to court in the morning, and then
when he was done with that, I guess it was
that at lunch was he doing At lunch he would
run over, he took a taxi or an uber appropriate enough,
maybe it was a lift, and he would go and
meet and he is now in the record business. He
(34:59):
is now he's making music and he's signing acts and music.
He was, while on federal trial, was working on his
next job. How great is that? It was great? And
the fact that he did because he was looking at
the landscape of what he can do for employment with
a felony conviction on his record, and he thought. The
(35:19):
first thing was, well, music doesn't care. Yeah, I've been
served right, Yeah, absolutely correct. Uh. And then the reaction
of this, it seems like they're the people that are
fully invested in college sports think well, we shouldn't watch
this documentary. This guy's a convicted felon. It doesn't matter
what he says, and they're like trying to downplay the
whole thing like it was all nothing. In college sports
(35:41):
is still still pure and innocent. And I'm like, really
like my my entire life working in sports media. When
I first started in Los Angeles back in the day,
and I heard stories and even before that about Sam Gilbert. Now,
if you don't know who Sam Gilbert is, look him up.
He was a car dealer in l a who funded
(36:04):
the Wizard of Westwood John Wooden. Right, I I getink
he owned a construction business, Sam Gilbert, but he he
wouldn't supply cars and all that stuff. And uh, he
was the money guy behind the greatest dynasty in college
basketball history, the nineteen sixties u c l A basketball team,
(36:26):
and and uh and and he he was involved in
I think the what's now known as the bicycle casino. UM.
He he had some some business dealings with that. But
but anyway, he would supply cars and all kinds of
other stuff to u c l A recruits. UM took
money out of his instruction company. And John Wooden, who
(36:48):
has done many you know, in his day, he did
many books about being holier than now and doing things
the right way and you know, make every day your masterpiece.
He he just looked the other way. He look the
other way while the money flowed out from Sam Gilbert.
And let's just say it hasn't stopped since Sam Gilbert.
(37:09):
And he's been dead since the eighties. And I think
he was banished in uh in the early eighties from
from being able to pay out money. But there's always
been some version of Sam Gilbert involved in college sports.
I mean, but happens everywhere too, and every single sport.
So I mean, you either got to be completely naive
or just oblivious to the fact that these guys and
(37:31):
some females are getting paid. There's so much money out there,
and of course if you're making millions beyond millions of
I mean in the documentary they talked about smaller major
programs like Creighton shelling out over a hundred thousand dollars
for for prospects and Creighton there's a rip about Creighton.
And so when you have all that money that's involved
(37:53):
and you're invested, I mean, Dan Watson brought up a
great point because if you're if you're a shoe company
and you're giving U. C. L a. A Or Louisville
or Texas or Southern cal a certain amount of money, Yeah,
you control what they do. I mean, long story short,
you control how they distribute, how they coach, how they recruit,
(38:13):
all those things that comes into play. Of course. Yeah. Absolutely.
And then one final final point in all this, as
we talked about the scheme our big documentary review here,
I gave it an eight out of ten. Guestcon says
a six only a six out of ten. Um is
when when when you look at the scheme and you
(38:36):
go through point by point and all this stuff, and uh,
you know what was I guess I'll ask you this,
Like you said you were upset, what were you upset about? This?
Only gave it a six? I gave it an eight.
I thought it was well done, the production value was
good on this. It was obviously one sided, But why
did you only go six? So my biggest reason for
(38:56):
this is because Dawkins was represented by an attorney by
the I think his name was Steve Haney, and they
mentioned it a little bit. But my problem is is
when the when the government made its case against Dawkins
and against everyone else that was involved, is that de'angelo
was never called to testify, and when Haney subpoenaed to
(39:19):
him to testify, he was not available or they did
not allow him to testify. And I thought there could
have been more to that back story, because you're talking
about not only being accused, but you should have obviously
the right to to face your accuser, which in this
case it's the Southern District of New York, but also
(39:40):
the witnesses that were involved. Well, he was the key witness,
He was the he was the motor behind this entire
thing getting underweight. He was the key broker to to
sod being introduced to obviously two Dawkins, introducing him to
other players that were involved, to the coaches, to the
assistant coaches, everybody else that came in. It was all
general it off of D'Angelo the number one key informant
(40:03):
or they undercover FBI agent, and he wasn't able to
testify in court. Like I thought, there was more to
that that should have been done. Obviously, at the end
they disclosed that the FBI didn't make any comments on this.
The n C double A didn't either, but with the
way that they were doing, that's investigative journalism involved with Dawkins.
I thought there was more that you could have peeled
(40:23):
off of that onion that would have helped. That's true.
So there's two things here and we'll wrap it up
with this. Either A, the FBI realized they had nothing
because Dawkins was corrupt, and that if they had gone
forward and tried to take down Sean Miller and Will Wade,
that would have come out more somehow in that situation.
And they said, well, D'Angelo, um, he was he was dirty,
(40:46):
so you can't believe anything that he did while he
was involved in this investigation. There's either that or the
other Deep State Illuminati is that Rick Pattino knows people,
um we Wade I'm assuming in the South knows some
people down in the Bayou. And Sean Miller has been
a big college basketball These guys, uh scratched the back
(41:09):
of somebody who needed their back scratched, and it just
kind of went away. But the fact that these guys
come out here touting their record and how seven percent
of their cases result in a conviction and they carry
the heavy hammer and then they I mean, they were
over zealous with how they attacked Dawkins and then he
got off with what what it was like a slap
(41:30):
on the wrist. If you're gonna be that ambitious and
you want to make a career case out of this,
then you need to chop off the head. You don't
go after the fingers. Yeah. Yeah, it was disheartening considering
how much money taxpayer money was spent and uh, next
to nothing, next to nothing. And it didn't make for
a good documentary though, So we got a good documentary
(41:51):
to watch during this two hours time again. It's called
The Scheme. It's on HBO. Check it out. You want
to know we gave you all the good stuff, but
there it is all right, thank you podcast all weekend.
We are here for you again. Follow us on social media.
I am on Twitter at Ben Maller. My Instagram page
is Ben Maller on Fox and our Facebook page. We
(42:13):
get a lot of questions. We'll have another podcast sometime
this weekend with grab Bag and questions and answers and
all that. And those are questions that are submitted on Facebook,
which is Ben Mallard's show on Facebook and guest gons
on social media. Not on Facebook though, you know, thank god.
I'm on Instagram at Dave Gascon and twitters at David J.
(42:35):
Just the letter J David J. Gascon. Alright, have a
great today. Whatever you do today, don't well you can't
really do anything, so don't do anything just to hang around.
Just don't do nothing. Alright, have a have a good
We'll talk to you next time.
Host
Ben Maller
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