Walters, Bloom Get Court Reversal

A federal appeals court in Chicago Monday overturned the racketeering convictions of two sports agents who had been accused of signing athletes to contracts before their eligibility expired.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the convictions of Norby Walters and Lloyd Bloom on a legal technicality and did not address the mail fraud, racketeering or conspiracy counts. This left open the possibility of retrial, but prosecutors who handled the case were not in their offices after business hours Monday, and it could not be learned if they would try again for convictions.

In its ruling, the appeals court said U.S. District Judge George Marovich improperly refused to call certain testimony to the jurors’ attention during his instruction to the panel.

Walters, 58, of New York, had been sentenced to five years in prison; Bloom, 30, of Sherman Oaks was given three years.

“I love everybody! God bless the judges!” Walters shouted into the telephone from his New York home minutes after he learned of the reversal. “I believe justice was done.”

The government said Walters and Bloom paid college athletes thousands of dollars to sign secret representation contracts before their eligibility had expired, a violation of NCAA rules. The pair was also accused of threatening to break the legs of some athletes to keep them from disregarding the contracts.