Bribery charges dismissed against former N.C. State football player who paid athletes
The bribery charges against former N.C. State football player Eric Leak were recently dismissed in a federal court in Charlotte.
Leak had been charged with conspiracy to commit promotional money laundering. Court documents claimed that he had provided between $50,000 and $75,000 to college athletes between 2012-15.
Leak, 41, has been involved in multiple NCAA problems for N.C. State, going back to 2010. He is serving an 18-month prison sentence from a separate federal case for Medicaid fraud. He has been barred from N.C. State’s campus.
Leak had pleaded guilty to the bribery charges in March 2019 but when he went before Judge Robert J. Conrad in the Western District court of North Carolina in Charlotte on Sept. 25, Conrad questioned whether Leak actually committed a federal crime and also asked for proof of a conspiracy.
Conrad is a former basketball player at Clemson and specifically mentioned the fraud trial of former Adidas executive Jim Gatto during Leak’s sentencing and questioned whether by itself paying college athletes constitutes a federal crime.
At Leak’s sentencing in the Charlotte court in September, Conrad had asked federal prosecutor Daniel Ryan to provide proof of the conspiracy and to demonstrate how it reached the level of a federal crime. The case had been extended without a set date. Conrad signed a dismissal of the bribery charges against Leak on Feb. 6, according to the court document.
Leak played wide receiver at N.C. State from 1997-2000 and had remained close to some of the Wolfpack players in the football and basketball program. He illegally used funds from his Durham-based mental health service company to support his sports management services company.
He first became a problem for N.C. State with the NCAA in 2010, when he was found to have paid a former basketball player’s rent. Leak once claimed he was “like a life coach” to his clients, including former N.C. State football player David Amerson and current NBA star Andrew Wiggins.
It was a connection to Wiggins, and his Adidas grassroots basketball program, which tied to Leak back to N.C. State most recently in the Dennis Smith Jr. case. Smith played for Team Loaded and his father, Dennis Sr., was the team’s coach.
During Gatto’s case in New York last October, Leak’s name was mentioned during the trial in connection to Smith as a “financial adviser.”
Leak had been serving his prison sentence, which is set to end in May, in a low-security federal facility in Petersburg, Va.
This story was originally published February 18, 2020 at 10:48 AM.
