Search warrant says Eric Leak gave UNC athlete improper benefits
A search warrant from a 28-month investigation of a Raleigh sports management company and its owner, former N.C. State football player Eric Leak, says state agents found evidence that Leak had given an unnamed UNC athlete "improper benefits ... in violation of the North Carolina Uniform Athlete Agents Act."
The search warrant application stated that the documents had come to light during a previous search of Leak’s business, Hot Shots Sports Management Inc., at 5022 Isabella Cannon Drive by David L. Rose, an investigator for the Secretary of State’s office. It said that search was authorized as part of a separate investigation.
Leak, 37, was not a registered sports agent at the time, the application said. It does not say when the benefits were given or what they involved.
The application, made by Rose and SBI Agent David P. Snead, laid out a background of interviews in which San Diego Chargers defensive back David Amerson and Washington Redskins wide receiver Keenan Allen said that Leak had exceeded agreements they had with him to manage their money and got $100,000 lines of credit using powers of attorney that they had not given him.
The state’s Leak investigation began in December 2013 under former Wake District Attorney Colon Willoughby, the application said.
The warrants were issued by a Superior Court judge in mid-March, executed right away and ordered sealed for 60 days. They became public Wednesday.
Leak has been a target of a federal investigation into possible Medicaid fraud by Nature’s Reflections, a mental health services provider that Leak owns.
The searches by the state agents brought a request by the U.S. Attorney whose district covers Wake County that state courts not authorize any more of them because they might get in the way of a federal “ongoing criminal investigation” of Leak and his wife, Emily.
The agents also got search warrants that covered the location Hot Shots had listed as its mailing address, Leak’s 8,200-square-foot house at 1145 Stone Kirk Drive in Raleigh. Those warrants named a former Hot Shots employee as the subject of the search.
Hot Shots’ formation paperwork listed it as being at the Isabella Cannon Drive address.
Emily Leak was listed as Hot Shots’ agent then. Leak changed the company from a limited liability corporation to a conventional corporation and moved its home state to Delaware. Delaware’s laws on disclosure of corporate information are more stringent than most other states, making it popular as a place to incorporate.
The company was formed in 2011 as Hot Shot Sports and Financial Management LLC, Secretary of State records show.
It was changed later to Hot Shot Sports Management, LLC. Leak changed to Delaware in 2014, the agents said in their search warrant application.
Hot Shots’ last filing with North Carolina authorities was in May 2013, an annual report. It listed Emily Leak as a managing member and the manager as Karen M. Carter from Waxhaw, in Union County.
This story was originally published May 19, 2016 at 10:40 AM with the headline "Search warrant says Eric Leak gave UNC athlete improper benefits."