The arrest of Michael Mann, who was charged with committing $70 million in bank fraud, according to the Albany Business Review, has repercussions that extend to the high school basketball levels.
Mann was the founder of Lincoln Academy, a North Carolina basketball school tailored toward elite prospects. He largely funded the program and often paid for athletes’ tuition, board and lodging, according to the Daily Mail.
This summer, players including four-star guard Bryce McGowens, three-star guard Elijah Wood and Quincy Ademokoya had announced their transfers to the program.
It was shuttered in early September, around the same time Mann’s MyPayrollHR company was shut down.
A criminal complaint filed by the FBI states Mann said this payroll service was legitimate but “admitted to creating other companies that had no purpose other than to be used in the fraud.”
It was unclear which companies were solely for fraudulent purposes.
The shutdown of Lincoln Academy forces those students to find new schools.
McGowens announced he is returning to the school he attended last year, Wren (Piedmont, South Carolina).
Greenville Online was the first to report he was transferring back. The article stated Lincoln Academy had shut down because it had “ran into financial difficulties.”
Now, with the arrest of Mann, these “difficulties” are beginning to be clarified.
