The U.S. Attorney’s office is investigating the authenticity of an NBA Players Association contract that allowed Billy Hunter, the executive director of players union, to use more than $3 million in union funds to invest in a failing investment firm that employed his son.
Hunter is currently on a leave of absence, and he could be permanently removed from his position this weekend when the players union meet at the NBA All-Star game weekend.
According to Yahoo! Sports, the probe “centers on the legitimacy of the signatures on the union’s document” with the investment firm, Prim Capital, “including those of NBPA’s late general counsel Gary Hall and NBPA director of player services Purvis Short.”
The law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison investigated the five-year deal in which the players union would pay the investment firm over $600,000 a year. The union also reportedly spent $80,000 un union funds to first study the potential investment.
“In our opinion, this provision is highly unusual and inconsistent with normal business practices,” the Paul-Weiss report said.
According to Yahoo! Sports, the investment firm hired Hunter’s son in 2002 and the NBPA’s “executive committee is required by its constitution to approve expenditures more than $25,000, and were never shown the purported NBPA-Prim deal worth more than $600,000 annually.”
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