So he just went ahead and did it?
The attorney for former Iowa State University defensive lineman Isaiah Lee has accused an agent of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) for targeting college athletes in a sports betting sting without a valid reason.
Calling the beginning of last year’s gambling investigation a “warrantless search,” Van Plumb, who also represents former Iowa State Cyclone Eyioma Uwazurike, says DCI agent Brian Sanger never had any notion that any sort of illegal gambling was going on. There was never an anonymous tip that athletes were placing bets on sports, there was never a complaint of any sort, and there was no evidence that anything was going on.
In fact, the court filing quotes Sanger as saying in a deposition that he “cannot remember why he decided to conduct the warrantless searches,” but that he himself was “concerned about things such as people infiltrating Iowa’s sports teams to gain insider information or match fixing.”
If at first you don’t succeed….
The filing describes Sanger’s process, stating that he began at the University of Iowa, using a tool called Kibana to set up a GeoFence around the freshman and sophomore dorms. He was able to see that there was traffic going to DraftKings and FanDuel, but he could not determine if there was any betting, let alone who was doing it.
He told his supervisors at the DCI the little to no information he had found, but was denied when he asked to continue with the investigation. Sanger then went ahead and GeoFenced an athletic facility at the University of Iowa, one in which only athletes, coaches, and other athletic staff were permitted. His supervisors let him continue after he presented his subsequent findings.
Considering there was no reason to suspect any illegal gambling, Plumb believes the warrantless search was a violation of the student athletes’ privacy. He has requested documentation from the DCI regarding the department’s policies surrounding the GeoComply software, as well as any communications from the investigation.
Lots of athletes targeted
Dozens of University of Iowa and Iowa State University athletes were swept up in the probe. Some placed hundreds or even thousands of bets, but for very small amounts per bet. Isaiah Lee, for example, placed 115 bets totaling just $885. A dozen were on Iowa State football games, however, and one of the bets was even on his own team to lose.
Lee left the Iowa State program and did not play college football in 2023 after starting in all of the Cyclones’ games in 2022.
Even in instances in which an athlete bet on their team’s games, the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission said that there was no evidence that the competitions were impacted by the gambling.
