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Laremy Tunsil NFL Draft Controversy: Attorney Says Of Money Exchange, ‘Much Ado About Nothing’

By Shaunee Flowers
Published on: 14:31 PST, May 1, 2016

Laremy Tunsil was ready for the best night of his life. The Ole Miss offensive tackle was going to draft high, with some projections even guessing that he might go first. Now Laremy is fighting to fix his shattered reputation after his Twitter account was allegedly hacked, leaking a bong video that cost the football player millions. Now Tunsil’s lawyer is speaking out after a second attack outed him for taking money from a coach.

On Thursday, career damaging text messages were posted to Laremy Tunsil’s Twitter account. In the texts, the Ole Miss star was seen asking his coach for money, which is a huge no-no in the NCAA. This second attack proved that someone was trying to destroy Tunsil during what should be the best time of his life. With the original bong video that was uploaded just minutes before the NFL Draft, it was already proven that Tunsil fell at least seven spots as the Baltimore Ravens confessed that they balked at the video and chose another rookie. Baltimore chose sixth in the 2016 NFL Draft, and Tunsil may have gone even sooner than that.

Forbes reported that Laremy Tunsil lost at least $7 million because of that bong and gas mask video that was posted to his verified Twitter account just moments before the draft. The subsequent posting of his private text messages now will force Tunsil into an NCAA investigation, further tarnishing his reputation before his professional career even begins.

According to Fox Sports, Laremy Tunsil’s attorney has been working hard to minimize the damage of text messages between Tunsil and an Ole Miss coach that allegedly broke NCAA rules that prohibits players from accepting money from coaches and boosters. Tunsil quickly admitted that he had made some mistakes and apologized, but his attorney Steve Farese says it was never a big deal at all.

“My information is that issue, in and of itself, has already been discussed previously with the NCAA and there was nothing to it,” Tunsil’s attorney told Mad Dog Sports Radio on SiriusXM. “Once the truth comes out about that text, and I hate to make a pun, but the text is taken out of context. And once it is found out what this is all about, it will be much to do about nothing.”

The “nothing” that Farese is talking about happens to be a set of text messages between Laremy Tunsil and Ole Miss assistant athletic director John Miller. In the text messages, Tunsil asks Miller for rent money and also to pay his mother’s water and electric bills.

Tunsil attended a press conference after the text messages were exposed. When asked about the money scandal, he said, “I made a mistake. That happened.” When a reporter pressed Tunsil and asked him if he was talking about taking money from the coaching staff, he said that it was.

Ole Miss has already released a statement about the text messages and said that they intend to fully cooperate with the NCAA and the SEC. That said, Tunsil served a seven-game suspension at the beginning of last year “impermissible benefits,” which sounds like he may have already been punished for the payments that he was discussing in the text messages. It’s not clear if this issue was tied in to his punishment, but Tunsil was already suspended for using a loaner car without making payments, as well as for receiving a zero-interest loan for the down payment on a car, among a list of other banned player benefits that he clearly took advantage of while playing for Ole Miss.

[Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images]

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