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The ongoing controversy over an Iowa criminal investigation into betting by collegiate athletes boiled over on Friday (April 26) with the filing of a federal lawsuit by 26 athletes against the state and multiple investigative agencies.
The athletes, including current NFL player Eyioma Uwazurike, filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa against the state, the Iowa Department of Public Safety (DPS), the Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), and several named investigators.
Attorneys for the 26 athletes say their civil rights were violated by investigators performing a warrantless search using GeoComply tracking software to identify athletes betting within college facilities at the state’s two largest public universities, the University of Iowa and Iowa State University.
The suit includes members of the football, basketball, baseball, and wrestling teams at the two schools.
A total of 16 athletes named in the lawsuit were criminally charged, with 12 pleading guilty to underage gambling charges before disclosure of the methodology used to prosecute them.
Four others, including Uwazurike, had the charges against them dropped after prosecutors said that the prosecution was “no longer in the interest of justice” following the disclosure of an email from GeoComply to the DCI informing them that their account would be disabled, as the company believed that the DCI may have exceeded the intended scope of the geolocation product’s use.
Attorneys for the athletes say that as a result of the search being undertaken without a warrant, further steps, such as the seizure of cell phones, were invalid and thus further violated constitutional privacy rights.
Both the DPS and DCI have maintained in public statements and court filings that they believe the search was a legitimate one.
“I understand why this investigation and the resulting charges have generated so much attention and such strong opinions,” said DPS commissioner Stephan Bayens, who is also one of the specifically named parties in the lawsuit, in a statement last month after charges against the athletes were dropped.
“We love our college sports here in Iowa, myself included. Had this situation not involved college athletes, the public perception may have been entirely different.
“As law enforcement officers, we take an oath to uphold the law and we do so without exception, even when it’s difficult,” Bayens added at the time. “Throughout the investigation and subsequent prosecution, we continually reviewed our actions and I fully stand behind the investigation and the agents who did the work.”
The most notable of the 26 athletes, Uwazurike, remains suspended from the NFL after receiving an indefinite suspension of at least one year last July.
The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission said in a statement in September when prosecutors began filing charges that it had not found any evidence of sports integrity being compromised at either school.
In the wake of the scandal, the gaming commission also introduced updated regulations that now require a prominent message to be displayed by operators that account sharing is prohibited and that persons under the age of 21 are prohibited from wagering. The state's updated sports wagering regulations also now expressly prohibit the funding of a wagering account from the financial account of anyone under the age of 21.
Amid heightened scrutiny of the regulatory agency in light of the case, the Iowa House of Representatives approved a resolution in March to block the new regulations from taking effect, but the Senate took no action before the state legislature adjourned last week.
