At his peak, Gilbert Arenas was one of the highest-paid players in the NBA. In 2005, he signed a six-year contract with the Washington Wizards worth $111 million. In 2014, ESPN the magazine rated Arenas as the 30th-highest paid athlete in professional sports – despite the fact that he had been out of the league since 2012.
A common pitfall for many professional athletes who make this much money is falling victim to seedy personal assistants, skimming from their accounts unbeknownst to their clients. Arenas now finds himself among those ranks, as his former assistant was found guilyt on September 2nd of stealing more than $2.1 million from Agent Zero.
As Keely Diven of CSN Mid-Atlantic reports:
According to prosecutors, White stole money during a period from 2008 to 2011, making unauthorized bank transfers from Arenas’ accounts into three accounts of his own. He was found guilty of 11 counts of wire fraud for the theft.
The money funneled from Arenas was not reported in White’s and his wife’s joint income tax returns during that span, resulting in four additional counts of filing a false tax-related document.
While this isn’t as severe of a case as that of Tim Duncan, who lost more than $20 million to a dishonest financial adviser, it’s still a terrible thing to happen. Arenas is vindicated in a court of law, but he may not be able to recoup all of his losses. Forget how much money he’s made in his career, forget the fact that he’ll be “fine.” Theft is theft, and it’s still a horrible thing to happen to a person.
(Via CSN Mid-Atlantic)
