Throughout a latest Gil’s Area episode, former NBA guard Rashad McCants retold the story of how fraudster Peggy Ann Fulford stole all his cash.

Right here’s a extra in-depth look into what occurred from this 2019 Sports activities Illustrated piece.

(through Alex Prewitt/Sports activities Illustrated):  

On the morning he realized his checking account had been drained, Rashad McCants couldn’t afford doughnuts. As a rookie at Timberwolves coaching camp within the fall of 2005 it was his obligation to snag a pair containers of breakfast treats earlier than apply, as assigned by the group’s unquestioned alpha, Kevin Garnett. So when the 21-year-old guard reported to the locker room empty-handed—unable to cowl even a single cruller—he bought blasted with a KG earful. “No means you don’t have cash,” McCants recollects Garnett barking. “I’m not attempting to listen to that s—!”

McCants was baffled too. Six months after main North Carolina to the NCAA title as a junior and declaring for the NBA draft, at which the T-Wolves took him at No. 14, he’d simply acquired the primary examine from his $1.54 million rookie deal. Even after some admittedly lavish splurges, although—a Vary Rover, a $5,000 Brioni swimsuit and varied Louis Vuitton gadgets—he knew there was no probability he’d already blown by six figures.

The rookie’s monetary hit can be softened when Garnett wired him $10,000 to cowl bills till the subsequent payday, however McCants nonetheless remembers the wrenching realization that got here when his agent confirmed the disappearance of greater than $200,000, with just one believable rationalization for the place it might’ve gone. It’s the identical intestine punch that will be felt over the subsequent decade by medical doctors, legal professionals, no less than 4 different athletes and one aerospace engineer, all of them ensnared in the identical tangled prison saga that will stretch from Texas to Florida, Saudi Arabia to North Korea.

“I used to be like, ‘Peggy?’” McCants says. “‘What? How?’”