Former Miami Hurricanes commit, quarterback Jaden Rashada, is suing Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier and top Florida booster Hugh Hathcock for fraud. Alex Donno and attorney Bruce Warner break down the early reports.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00All right, so Bruce, this is-
00:02Let's hear it, because you told me before,
00:04just before we went on, and I told you,
00:07you'll have to read what you're gonna read,
00:09but I told you that there's such a thing called
00:11fraud in the inducement.
00:14And to me, based on the little information
00:16that you gave me, with the feedback coming from the Gators
00:19that welcome to the Gators or whatever you said,
00:21you can read it, that to me,
00:23that's clearly fraud in the inducement,
00:26because they induced him to commit to Florida
00:29based on the money promises and the emails
00:32or the texts or whatever he received,
00:34congratulations, you're looking forward to blah, blah,
00:37you're getting your 500,000,
00:38even if he didn't get the 500,000,
00:40they induced him to commit to the Gators.
00:43They're in real trouble.
00:44Yeah, so Jaden Rashad, for those who don't remember,
00:47he was a blue chip, four star, five star,
00:51even in a couple of the recruiting services quarterback
00:54from the class of 2023, was verbally committed to Miami.
00:59And then in November of 2022,
01:02really in the middle of the night,
01:04like he announced in the recruiting group chat
01:06that he was in, by the way, guys, I'm gone.
01:08And then it came out late that night,
01:10he was flipping to Florida.
01:11And the reason why he was flipping to Florida was,
01:14they promised him a $13.85 million NIL deal.
01:20And then right before national signing day,
01:22he found out they don't have 13.85,
01:25or at least they're not paying me that 13.85.
01:28And so he ended up, you know,
01:29getting released from his national letter of intent,
01:31went to Arizona State.
01:33He has since transferred to Georgia,
01:35but you talked about that inducement.
01:36So here's the story.
01:38John Talti of CBS Sports just posted this.
01:42He's now, remember, he's now a Georgia quarterback.
01:44Jaden Rashad has sued Florida head coach, Billy Napier,
01:48top Gators booster, Hugh Hathcock,
01:51and former football staffer, Marcus Castro Walker,
01:54over a failed NIL deal,
01:56which would have paid the quarterback 13.85 million,
01:59according to a lawsuit filed in federal court on Tuesday.
02:02So let me get to some of the details.
02:04Okay, so that lawsuit, I'd love to read the lawsuit.
02:07I don't think you have it either,
02:08but I'd like to try to get my hands on that.
02:10I would love you to get your hands on it,
02:12and then we'll have your legal review.
02:14So they go into it.
02:15To sway Rashad's decision,
02:17Hathcock and Castro Walker offered the $13.85 million deal
02:22with 5.35 million, including a $500,000 signing bonus.
02:26Can you imagine a high schooler,
02:29like all of a sudden someone's like,
02:30hey, we're gonna give you a signing bonus of 500K.
02:32We're gonna give you 13.85 million.
02:35That would induce anybody into doing just about anything.
02:37Okay?
02:38And this was all fraud, apparently,
02:40as we already kind of knew that.
02:42So-
02:43If they can prove, if the kid can prove
02:45that they never had any intention of paying the money,
02:47which is what you said,
02:48and I told you the intent is very difficult
02:52for anybody to figure out,
02:53unless there's really documentation,
02:56which you have some of it.
02:57But if they had no intent, they're really screwed.
03:01I mean, I don't know what's gonna happen to that school,
03:03but they're gonna be in real trouble.
03:05Yeah.
03:06So out of the-
03:07How many Dan?
03:08Right.
03:09So out of the 13.85 million,
03:105.35 million was, including the signing bonus,
03:14was to come through Hugh Hathcock's
03:16Velocity Automotive Company,
03:18and the rest through the Gator Guard,
03:20which is an NIL collective,
03:22I think a former NIL collective that he started.
03:25Hathcock had previously committed to donating 12.6 million
03:29to the Gator Boosters,
03:30and early media reports stated the Gator Guard
03:33raised 5 million in its first 24 hours.
03:36Before the deal was finalized, however,
03:39Hathcock informed Rashadda's representatives
03:41that he no longer wanted to route the NIL payments
03:44through his company because he planned to sell it,
03:46according to the lawsuit.
03:47Instead, he and Castro Walker,
03:49that's the former Gator staffer,
03:51proposed money coming directly from Hathcock,
03:54and the rest coming through the Gator Collective,
03:56Florida's other NIL collective-
03:58All right, so stop.
03:59Eddie Rojas.
03:59So stop.
04:00They did not withdraw the offer.
04:03They modified the offer.
04:05Right.
04:06That's a difference also, okay?
04:08So it's like, we're still gonna get you your money,
04:10it's just someone different is gonna sign the check,
04:12is what they're hoping.
04:13Right, in other words,
04:14they could have changed this and said,
04:18well, we're only gonna give you 8 million, yes or no?
04:19You know, we decided we're not giving you 13.
04:21They didn't do that.
04:22They just modified the way
04:24that the payments were gonna be made.
04:25Still does not negate the offer that was made to the kid.