Saturday morning, a trusted source told us that a high-profile agent had been cuffed and detained at the Scouting Combine. Later in the day, another source told us essentially the same story, including the same name. All the while, the high-profile agent denied it.
And the high-profile agent whose name never was revealed by us (or, as far as we can tell, by anyone else) has been vindicated.
As SportsByBrooks.com reported earlier today, agent Pat Dye, Jr. was handcuffed and detained in Indianapolis during the Scouting Combine. PFT spoke with Dye and got the whole story, from Dye’s perspective.
Dye said that, on Thursday night, he and partner Jimmy Sexton were at dinner. They heard from representatives of Under Armour, who invited them to the player hotel for the official signing of receiver Julio Jones’ marketing deal with the company.
Roughly 45 minutes later, Dye and Sexton arrived. With them were James Denton, a long-time employee of Sexton’s firm (which recently merged with Dye’s), and Sexton’s corporate counsel, Rick Landrum. The four men were met there by Under Armour personnel, and they were issued Under Armour credentials. They headed straight to the Under Armour suite, remained there for roughly 15 minutes, and left the hotel.
Dye advises that the suite was not in a secure area, although the path to the Under Armour suite caused them to pass through a secure area.
Sexton and Landrum left in one cab, and Dye and Denton started to leave in another. At that point, a police officer tapped on the window of the cab, asked Dye and Denton to get out, and handcuffed both of them.
They were escorted by the police officer and by a Combine security officer into a room at the hotel, where two Under Armour employees were detained as well, apparently for their role in issuing false credentials to Dye, Sexton, Denton, and Landrum. Dye said that he at no time looked at the name (if any) on his credential, which was collected by Under Armour before the four men left the hotel.
Dye said that the police explained that he had been detained because he had entered a secure area under false pretenses, and thus that he committed criminal trespass. He was interviewed for 45 minutes, and he was in custody for roughly three hours, from 11:15 p.m. until 2:15 a.m.
Dye explained that police explained he was being released because Dye had “told the truth and cooperated.”
The incident, Dye said, was “unfortunate and embarrassing,” and he was “stunned” as it was occurring. “I’m still in disbelief,” he said.
As best we can tell, someone with Under Armour used credentials issued in other names to provide Sexton, Dye, Denton, and Landrum access to the hotel for the purposes of getting the Jones deal signed. The fact that one of the men is a licensed lawyer makes it hard for us to accept the notion that he’d jeopardize his law license by knowingly engaging in a criminal activity.
Then again, Landrum wouldn’t have been the first lawyer to do something illegal.
All that said, if there had been any reason to believe that anyone had committed a crime, Dye and Denton would have been booked -- and Sexton and Landrum would have had someone other than housekeeping knocking on the door at their hotel rooms.
UPDATE: Actually, Sexton’s cab was detained briefly, but the officer allowed Sexton and Landrum to leave.
