Rumors

An El Paso man pleaded guilty in federal court to seven counts of wire fraud as part of a Ponzi scheme on Friday, according to the Justice Department. Court documents said he falsely represented to use funds to promote NBA preseason games. 63-year-old Timothy France Johnson solicited investments from February 2009 to May 2020, according to court documents. Johnson falsely represented he would use the funds to obtain venues and fund marketing, the Justice Department reports.

KVIA.com

Pau Gasol: Deeply saddened and heartbroken about #massshootings in El Paso and Dayton. My thoughts are with the victims and their families 🙏

Twitter

We've known that Jimmy Butler dug stuffed animals ever since he introduced us to his "pet," Royce. But this weekend, the second-year Chicago Bulls wing showed us that his love extends to the sneaker game: Butler tweeted a picture of these beauties on Saturday morning from El Paso, Texas, where he was biding his time before checking out the UTEP Miners' college-football-season-opening game against the Oklahoma Sooners on Saturday night. UTEP wide receiver Jordan Leslie is a close friend of Butler's, whose family took Butler in while he was heading into his senior year of high school in Houston; in the lead-up to the 2011 NBA draft, in which the Bulls selected Butler 30th overall out of Marquette, Butler reportedly "insisted on scheduling his predraft workouts around the UTEP spring football game."

Yahoo! Sports

Recently, though, he has been running plays that don't suggest coaching by a publicist. First, he appeared at an August rally in El Paso, Texas, for three city officials facing a recall vote because they want to continue providing benefits to same-sex partners of municipal employees, in spite of a ballot measure that abolished the practice. Then, in a follow-up interview with The Chronicle, Hardaway ducked one question. He chose wisely. It happened to be the most absurd question routinely asked about whether teams can welcome openly gay athletes. Hardaway initially planned his trip to El Paso, where he played college ball, around a charity golf tournament. Before he left, he called an old friend, the former assistant coach who recruited him out of Chicago, and asked to meet for drinks.

San Francisco Chronicle