On March 23, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York published a release indicating that former NBA agent Charles Briscoe was arrested and faces serious criminal charges related to alleged crimes concerning the defrauding of professional athlete clients out of millions of dollars.
The announcement indicates that one of Briscoe’s clients was discussing the potential of purchasing a pro women’s basketball team and Briscoe introduced that athlete to a man named Calvin Darden, Jr. Together, Briscoe and Darden, Jr., along with one of Darden, Jr.’s relatives, talked about purchasing the team through a company given that the player was not permitted to acquire an interest in the team in his own name while still employed as a pro basketball player. Briscoe and Darden Jr. purportedly told the player that the company to purchase the women’s basketball team had a board of advisors containing several prominent individuals when they apparently knew that at least two of those individuals were not, in fact, advisors to the company.
The player transferred $7 million to a bank account controlled by Darden, Jr. for the purpose of purchasing the aforesaid women’s basketball team. Unfortunately, none of that money was used for that purpose. Instead, more than $1 million was transferred to Briscoe.
The allegations also state that Briscoe defrauded another athlete when he convinced that athlete to fund a startup sports agency, lying that the agency had already signed a highly touted athlete who was to be drafted by an NBA team. Briscoe allegedly went so far as to forge the signature of the athlete who he said had signed with the agency and directed the athlete investor to transfer $1 million as a loan. Briscoe purportedly pocketed the cash and used more than $300,000 of it to pay off a debt that he had personally incurred.
Briscoe claimed to represent many NBA players, although it is not altogether clear who he represented in the past. In February 2022, Briscoe was sued by Continuum Capital Ltd. for allegedly making false representations to the company, which relied on those statements to help fund a startup agency called Icon Legacy Group in March 2021. The Complaint alleges that Briscoe represented to Continuum that he was the agent for Dwight Howard and was in the midst of completing a new contract for Howard, which would result in significant fees for the company. But apparently, Howard was represented by agent Qais Haider at the time. Continuum also complained that Briscoe said he was representing Chris Duarte and that commissions were due from Duarte, but no money was ever collected.
