Seven of the nine Florida Gators that were being investigated for credit card fraud have been offered and agreed to pre-trial diversion, court records showed on Wednesday.
Antonio Callaway, Jordan Scarlett James Houston, Richerd Desir-Jones, Keivonnis Davis, Rick Wells and Ventrell Miller have all agreed to pre-trial diversion. Kadeem Telfort and Jordan Smith, due to the volume of the charges they are facing, have not been offered the diversion program at this time.
While these seven individuals have agreed to the diversion program they are not officially in it yet. They will each individually have a court date where the State Attorney’s Office will tell a judge that he and the defendant have come to an agreement and that the State recommends pre-trial diversion. The judge then will officially place each player into the program. Those hearings will be held between November 6-14.
Pre-Trial Diversion (or intervention) is, essentially, a contract that an individual agrees to with the State. The contract lays out certain criteria that the individual must meet over a specified length of time. If the individual meets all of the criteria the State agrees to not pursue the charges.
While the legal status is reaching closure for these seven student-athletes their status with the football team remains unclear.
Jim McElwain released this statement Thursday afternoon.
“We’ve been made aware of some updates in the legal process and there are still steps to go that include the University student conduct code.”
At this time it’s also unclear if the players would need to meet with the University of Florida student conduct board before being allowed to return to the football team. The nine players have been allowed to continue taking classes as the legal process has played out but none of them have been with the football program since August.
Theoretically the players would be able to play while going through their diversion program. That decision ultimately comes down to UF, Jim McElwain and Scott Stricklin.