Ex-Hoya Player Arrested on Drug Charge

John Turner, a former Georgetown University basketball forward, has been arrested on charges of possession of crack cocaine with the intent to distribute.

Turner, along with four others, was arrested Monday at a recreation center in Glenarden, Md., a Washington suburb, according to Maryland National Capital Police.

Police said they believe Turner and his associates were planning to sell 51 grams of crack cocaine. Turner posted $30,000 bail and was released. If convicted, he could face a 10-year prison sentence, officials said.

Turner’s scholarship was not renewed by Georgetown, after Coach John Thompson told a national television audience that he had learned Turner and freshman Alonzo Mourning had been seen in the company of Rayful Edmond III, an alleged drug dealer.

Meanwhile, Turner, who asked Georgetown University to review the nonrenewal of his basketball scholarship, had been playing under a pseudonym in a non-NCAA sanctioned summer league, his attorney confirmed.

“I’m sure everyone knows it’s John Turner,” attorney Sheila Albright told the Washington Post.

Albright said she had been told of Turner’s participation in the National Basketball Assn. Say-No-To-Drugs Pro-Am League by Mary Robinson, Turner’s grandmother and legal guardian.

The league is not among the four Washington area summer leagues approved by the National Collegiate Athletic Assn., according to the NCAA’s legislative services office.

NCAA rules state that any student-athlete who participates in a nonsanctioned summer basketball league is ineligible for any further NCAA Division I or Division II play. But an NCAA official told the Post that, under normal circumstances, someone in violation of the rule would lose one game of regular-season eligibility for every nonsanctioned summer league game played.

Turner is not enrolled at any college.