Former NC State football player admits to bribing college athletes
Former N.C. State football player Eric Leak, recently sentenced to prison for Medicaid fraud, has admitted to running a business that bribed college athletes, according to a plea report filed in federal court in Charlotte last week.
The plea report, first reported Monday evening by WBTV in Charlotte, said Leak, 41, and other unidentified co-conspirators transferred money from Nature’s Reflections, the mental health services business at the heart of the Medicaid fraud, to Hot Shot Sports, a sports management company.
The plea agreement remains a sealed document, according to the federal court system’s website. It’s unclear when Leak would be sentenced or what penalty he would face for the federal crime of conspiracy to commit promotional money laundering.
From 2012 through “at least” 2015, the plea report said, Leak “provided and caused to be provided things of value to student-athletes, and in at least one instance a student-athlete’s family member, to influence those student-athletes to retain the services of Hot Shots and others affiliated with Hot Shots.”
The bribes provided included “shoes, clothes, transportation, gas, loans, food and entertainment, hotel rooms, the use of vehicles, and cash,” the plea report said. “On numerous occasions, Leak engaged, and caused others to engage in, in financial transactions, including the sending of interstate wires via Western Union, of funds to student-athletes and the payment of United States currency to student-athletes.”
The plea report said the value of the bribes was between $50,000 and $75,000. None of the athletes or their family members were identified in the report, which said the bribes violate NCAA regulations and North Carolina laws regarding the activities of sports agents.
The plea stems from the Medicaid fraud investigation in the Middle District of North Carolina. In December a federal judge in Greensboro gave Leak an 18-month sentence in that case. He was also ordered to pay a $5,000 fine and $420,115 in restitution.
According to 2015 IRS documents previously made public, Leak illegally received $8.7 million in Medicaid funds through Durham-based Nature’s Reflections from 2012-14, and then transferred more than $200,000 to Hot Shot Sports.
Leak has long been in trouble for his interactions with college athletes. He is in the midst of a 10-year ban from any contact with N.C. State after the NCAA had found Leak provided impermissible benefits to basketball players C.J. Leslie and Tracy Smith.
Leslie received $410 of impermissible benefits, and was suspended for three games in the 2011-12 basketball season.
Neither Leak’s attorney, Kearns Davis, or Daniel Ryan, the federal prosecutor who handled the plea, could be reached. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte did not issue a news release on the plea.
The plea report said that the criminal conduct took place in Mecklenburg County, which is within the Western District, “and elsewhere.”
Leak is serving his sentence at a low-security federal prison in Petersburg, Va. He is scheduled to be released May 6, 2020.
This story was originally published March 26, 2019 at 4:36 PM.