The Judge Who Granted Charles Bediako's TRO Is Not Only a Huge Alabama Donor, But Also Reportedly Married to the Defense Attorney for Darius Miles, the Former Bama Player Currently Facing Murder Charges
Front Office Sports — Tuscaloosa County Circuit Judge Jim Roberts created anarchy in college basketball this week when he ruled former G League and two-way player Charles Bediako immediately eligible to play for Alabama.
Roberts is also quite familiar with Crimson Tide athletics.
The judge and his wife Mary Turner Roberts are listed as active athletic donors on The Crimson Tide Foundation’s website, with lifetime contributions between $100,000 and $249,000.
Alabama and the NCAA both did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bediako is expected to play in Alabama’s game against Tennessee on Saturday. He played for the Crimson Tide from 2021 to 2023 and is suing the NCAA to seek reinstatement of his remaining eligibility despite leaving Alabama and declaring for the NBA draft in 2023. Bediako, a 7-foot center, never played in the NBA but signed a two-way contract with the Spurs in 2023. He played in the G League as recently as last Saturday, January 17.
The 23-year-old’s lawsuit is exactly the one G League executives feared when some of the league’s alumni started to commit to colleges last year.
“It’s challenging the definition of an NBA contract,” a G League executive in the Eastern Conference told FOS in November. “If you declared for the draft, went undrafted and signed directly with a G League team, is that not considered an NBA contract to the right judge the same way a standard deal or [training camp deal] is?”
Roberts appears to be that judge, and his backing of Crimson Tide sports isn’t his family’s only conflict of interest. His wife is a lawyer on the defense team for Bediako’s former Alabama teammate Darius Miles, who is set to stand trial for capital murder in a 2023 shooting.
Honestly, kudos to the University of Alabama. I genuinely respect the level of overt corruption that is on full display in this case.
Nate Oats and the Crimson Tide get a professional basketball player declared eligible in the middle of the season by a judge in Tuscaloosa County, who just so happens to have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the university. And oh by the way, his wife is reportedly the defense attorney for one of Bediako's former teammates from his first stint at Alabama, Darius Miles, who is currently awaiting trial on capital murder charges. What a fun coincidence!
The most embarrassing and infuriating part of this will be when Bediako's sham restraining order is invalidated during his hearing next week and he will have been "eligible" for one game against Tennessee. Nate Oats is such a fraudulent scumbag that he is making his program nationally mocked and reviled to get potentially one game out of a second-rate professional basketball player. Shameful.
But don't worry, guys. Nate Oats is going to fix this.
Giphy Images.