LSUPD arrested Houston resident Charles Taplin on Friday on charges of posing as a sports agent and soliciting information from West Campus Apartments residents about which University athletes lived in the complex.
Michael Bonnette, sports information director, said two men attempted to make contact with University athletes but were unsuccessful.
The day before the arrest was made, LSUPD received a tip that two males were loitering around WCA and asking people for the names of athletes who lived in the on-campus apartment complex, according to an LSUPD news release.
On the evening of the arrest, LSUPD received another tip describing the same vehicle and the same two males from the previous night on Skip Bertman Drive.
LSUPD stopped the vehicle and asked the two men to return the police department’s headquarters for further questioning.
During the interview investigators discovered that at least one of the two men being questioned had tried to make contact with University athletes around WCA and other undisclosed parts of campus to offer services as an agent, according to the statement.
Investigators also determined that neither male was a registered sports agent in Louisiana.
Taplin was arrested following the interview and booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison for violating a Louisiana law that regulates sports agents and their contact with athletes.
—–Contact Kyle Whitfield at [email protected]