More stories on corrruption at Ohio State
IOWA
ADEL, Iowa (AP) -- Former Iowa basketball player Pierre Pierce was charged Wednesday with burglary and domestic assault and spent several hours in jail before he was released.
The junior guard from Westmont, Ill., also was charged with burglary, false imprisonment, assault with intent to commit sexual abuse and criminal mischief. Pierce was released late Wednesday on his own recognizance.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200....ap/index.html
GEORGIA
ATHENS, Ga. (AP) -- A former Georgia point guard known for sparking an investigation into academic fraud at the school two years ago has been arrested again.
Tony Cole, who played basketball for Glen Oaks High School in Baton Rouge, is charged with violating his probation on a felony bad-check charge and was booked into the Clarke County Jail on Sunday. He was arrested after he was pulled over for a traffic violation in Oconee County.
The arrest is at least Cole's seventh in four years, including six times in Georgia.
Cole, 24, was sentenced to three years probation by a Clarke County Superior Court judge in September after he pleaded guilty to bouncing a $578 rent check to an Athens apartment complex in 2002. Authorities said a warrant was issued for Cole's arrest after he failed to show up for scheduled meetings with a probation officer and was $200 behind in paying off a fine.
Cole agreed to settle the debt in $50 monthly installments as a condition of his probation. He also faces misdemeanor charges in his native Louisiana related to the bad-check charge.
His short-lived career as a UGA basketball player ended in 2002 after he and two other UGA athletes were charged with raping a woman in Cole's room in a Georgia dormitory. Prosecutors dropped the charges against Cole, but he was kicked off the team.
In 2003, Cole's accusations during an ESPN interview that former Georgia coaches Jim Harrick and Jim Harrick Jr. paid his expenses and gave him credit for academic work he didn't do ended the Georgia careers of both Harricks and earned sanctions from the NCAA, including four years of probation and scholarship losses.
Cole will remain in jail until a hearing is set in the case.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200....ap/index.html
OREGON (stay tuned)
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) -- Oregon forward Ian Crosswhite was suspended indefinitely on Wednesday for violating team rules.
Coach Ernie Kent did not say which rules Crosswhite broke.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200....ap/index.html
GEORGIA (stay tuned)
ATLANTA (AP) -- Paul Hewitt on Wednesday disputed claims made in a book that former recruit Sebastian Telfair was offered $250,000 by a Georgia Tech supporter to sign with the Yellow Jackets.
In Ian O'Connor's book The Jump: Sebastian Telfair and the High Stakes Business of High School Ball, Telfair claims he was offered the money to attend a specific school.
In the book, Telfair says he was told by an unidentified man: "'If you come to this school, you'll get paid. I'm talking hundreds of thousands of dollars, $250,000.' And I was like, 'Oh yeah?"'
Telfair, now with the Portland Trail Blazers, never says in the book that the offer came from Georgia Tech. Instead, the book says "a person close to Telfair" said the offer came at a Georgia Tech game in Atlanta from a man who said he represented Tech.
Speaking before the Trail Blazers' game against the New Orleans Hornets Wednesday night, Telfair denied the claim. "Georgia Tech did not recruit me and never spoke to me. That's a false statement and I have no further comment," he said.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200....ap/index.html