Jurisprudence

Warren A. Gilbert Jr., operator of one of the largest U.S. Housing and Urban Development-subsidized housing projects in Dallas, defended payments of thousands of dollars to at least five Texas A&M; football players as proper.

Payments to the players allegedly were written off as maintenance fees for the housing projects. The players were paid year-round in apparent violation of NCAA rules, yet in some cases did no work, current and former employees of Gilbert say.

“I just know that they all worked,” Gilbert, director of the Texas A&M; Letterman Assn., told the Dallas Morning News. “That’s all I can tell you. We have everything protected and we can validate every time they came to work.

“It’s not paying them, in effect, to play football.”

Federal agents served subpoenas on properties of Gilbert on Wednesday, according to the newspaper. The subpoenas seek access to business records.

The Rev. Ocie Woods, a resident and former worker at the Wheatland Terrace housing project, told the Morning News that young men who described themselves as Aggie football players appeared every summer from 1988 to 1991 to work.

“They never did anything to my knowledge,” Woods said. “They would lay in the maintenance shed and sleep.”