DEL.ICIO.USEx-UGA hoops star Cole fired, in jail
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Tony Cole, the former University of Georgia basketball player who made headlines during his UGA career by accusing coach Jim Harrick and his son, assistant coach Jim Harrick Jr., of academic fraud, is in the news again - this time in Chicago, where he is being blamed for the resignation of the chief financial officer for Cook County, Ill.
According to reports in the Chicago Sun-Times, Cole was recently fired from his $61,000 a year job as a human resources assistant with Cook County after officials discovered he failed to disclose past criminal convictions on his job application.
Cole’s boss, county chief financial officer Donna Dunnings, was asked to resign last week after news broke that she had twice bailed Cole out of a Chicago jail following recent arrests for violating a protection order against an ex-girlfriend that he pleaded guilty to punching in the face.
Last week, Cole’s bond was increased to $200,000 and he was sent back to the Cook County Jail, where, according to jail records, he remains.
In 2004, the NCAA determined that Georgia’s basketball program provided recruiting inducements to Cole and committed academic fraud when Cole and two other basketball players were awarded “A” grades for work they did not do in a physical education class.
Harrick Jr. was fired and his father was forced to retire as basketball coach.
In 2002, a woman claimed that she was assaulted by Cole, former Georgia basketball player Steve Thomas and ex-football player Brandon Williams.
Williams was acquitted of any wrongdoing, and criminal charges against Cole and Thomas were dropped, but the woman filed a $25 million sexual harassment lawsuit against the university, claiming that UGA officials were slow to respond to the alleged assault.
That lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount in 2007.
In 2003, Cole was sentenced to three years’ probation after pleading guilty to writing bad checks.
According to the Sun-Times, Cole was arrested in March, 2008, for punching his former girlfriend with a closed fist.
The same day he pleaded guilty to that charge in DuPage County, Ill., he was hit with new charges that included violating his bond, obstructing a police officer, resisting police and battery.
Cole was at the Wheaton, Ill., courthouse waiting for the domestic battery case to be called when he allegedly cornered the woman, kept her from going into the courtroom and asked her to drop the charges against him, the newspaper reported.
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