Ahhh, Kirk Wright, America's favorite hedge fund fraudster. The Seven NFL players he swindled, including Marc Coleman, Steve Atwater, Ray Crockett, Al Smith, Blaine Bishop, Carlos Emmons and Clyde Simmons have been doing their level best to get their lost $20 million back, including suing Wright, the NFL, the players' association and anyone else who gets in their way.

The NFL players' association apparently endorsed Wright as an investment advisor through their Registered Financial Advisor Program was "started in 2002 to protect former, current and prospective NFL players from financial fraudsters and con artists" (even though he had outstanding liens against him and lacked professional liability insurance).

The latest version of the complaint has the players pursing satisfaction from two new defendants, ABC Corp. and XYZ Corp. The suit describes those entities as "John Doe" companies who are unknown to the plaintiffs, but were tasked to perform background checks for the NFL and NFL players' association.

Now wouldn't The Daily Caveat like to know which companies those would be? We do know that Kroll was tasked with tracking Wright (and his stolen cash) down, for whatever that's worth.

The NFL, for its part, is also in the crosshairs, but claims that the players bear sole responsibility for their finances. The League is asking for the suit to be dismissed and the NFL players' association is taking a similar tact. Both entities contend that they player contracts state that, in any case, arbitration - not litigation - is the remedy specified in player contracts. How the league will explain away the apparent total negligence of giving its endorsement to known fraudsters is a separate issue.

Meanwhile, with most of the $185 million that Wright swindled from investors still missing, his property is being put up for auction. Wright himself was arrested by the pool at the Miami Ritz Carlton (clearly having seen the error of his ways, of course) back in May and is cooling his heels while waiting for the myriad civil, criminal claims and charges against him to come due.

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

-- MDT

Labels: background checks, Kirk Wright, Kroll