Former Globetrotter, pastor held in NLV on fraud charges

Monday, June 9, 2003 | 9:20 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

Former Harlem Globetrotters player Clyde "The Glide" Austin of Las Vegas was one of four men charged with mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering, accused of bilking investors out of more than $10 million.

Austin, who also played at North Carolina State University, was being held as a federal prisoner in the North Las Vegas Detention Center today, jail officials confirmed. No bail had been set.

The four men were named in an indictment announced Friday by the U.S. attorney's office in Richmond, Va. Austin and the others are charged in a pyramid fraud scheme allegedly run through churches in Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri, Illinois, New Jersey, and Georgia.

Clyde E. Austin, Sr., 45, is a former resident of Cary, N.C., and a current resident of Las Vegas, according to a statement released with the indictment by the U.S. attorney's office in Richmond.

The statement said Austin, who played for the Globetrotters in the 1980s, was the pastor of churches in Cary and Las Vegas, but did not specify the local church with which he was affiliated.

A spokeswoman in the U.S. attorney's office in Richmond declined today to comment beyond what was in the statement, other than to say that most of the victims are from North Carolina and Virginia.

A detention hearing was scheduled for Wednesday.

Also named in the indictment were Lamont C. Knight, a former Virginia Commonwealth University basketball player, Richard A. Hertz Sr. and Thomas W. Hofler Jr.

Knight, 43, of Richmond, was a pastor of a local church and the president of Athletes for Jesus. Hertz, 51, of Richmond, was a minister in a local church. Hofler, 35, also is from Richmond, the statement said.

According to the indictment, the men promoted an "investment" program, involving "high yield trading" financial instruments that paid higher than market rates of return, the U.S. attorney's office said in its statement.

More than 200 potential investors were involved, the statement said. Many of these investors, who were members of churches associated with the defendants, invested their retirement funds from their IRA and 401(k) accounts, the statement said.

"What makes this case most egregious is that religious leaders preyed upon their parishioners for their personal enrichment," U.S. Attorney Paul J. McNulty said in the statement.