The U.S. Attorney’s office has spoken with Memphis Grizzlies’ guard O.J. Mayo regarding allegations he received improper benefits while attending the University of Southern California.
Federal authorities are investigating Rodney Guillory, the advisor to Mayo during his recruitment as a high school player, for possible tax evasion and misuse of charitable organization funds, according to reports.
The NCAA, Pac-10, FBI and IRS have been interested in speaking with O.J. Mayo since they began investigating questions raised in a May, 2008, ESPN Outside the Lines report detailing how Mayo accepted about $30,000 in cash and other benefits from Guillory.
The Outside the Lines report included an interview with former Guillory associate Louis Johnson, who said he helped Guillory provide O.J. Mayo with money, meals, clothes, a flat-screen television and other goods until 2008, shortly before O.J. Mayo finished his freshman season at USC.
As federal authorities investigate O.J. Mayo, the NCAA is currently looking into claims that Mayo’s younger brother may have also received some of those benefits.
Todd Mayo is a junior currently attending Houston High School in Memphis where this past season he averaged 23 points a game.
Attorneys for Johnson confirmed on Wednesday that NCAA investigators are seeking information about two documents from the Outside the Lines report that are linked to the younger Mayo.
One of the documents the NCAA is reviewing is a copy of a November 4, 2007 T-Mobile invoice charged to a non-profit foundation run by Guillory. Johnson told Outside the Lines that Guillory paid $192.33 for Todd Mayo’s cell service.
O.J., who was confronted by an ESPN reporter during the airing of the report, has denied any wrong doing.
