According to ESPN, Connor Stalions, the guy at the center of the Michigan sign-stealing scandal, has been officially fired.
Also, according to the tabloid of record, Michigan fired Alex Yood, who I’ve seen described as a “low-level” staffer. This firing seems to have nothing to do with sign-stealing, and is quite frankly weird.
Back in September, a man who went by “Boopac Shakur” posted a video on Instagram that purported to show Alex Yood had tried to pick up a 13-year-old girl online. Mr. Yood has not been charged by any law enforcement agency with any crime. “Boopac Shakur”‘s persona on social media seems to have been a “To Catch a Predator” wanna-be.
In the video, the man alleged to be Yood is wearing Michigan gear and seen carrying a bottle of alcohol at a store when he is confronted by two men.
At first, Yood appears to believe he has been caught by the police, but the men inform him that they are not the authorities.
When the men ask Yood what he is doing, he answers that he bought the liquor for a graduation party that he is hosting in a couple days.
Yood is asked how old he is and says he is 22.
The men ask him what he’s doing at the store and how far he drove, and Yood responds, “I’m not looking for trouble.”
The men then present Yood with photos of his online exchange with the person he allegedly thought was a 13-year-old girl.
Yood says he didn’t know she was 13, and they respond that he had been told her age twice in the exchange.
The two men then start screaming in the store: “This man is here to meet a 13-year-old girl!”
Again, Mr. Yood has not been charged with any crime, to the best of my knowledge and according to the reports I’ve seen.
Interestingly, “Boopac Shakur” (real name Robert Wayne Lee) was murdered not too long after the video was posted.
On Sept. 29 at around 10:30 p.m., Lee was in a restaurant in the area of Pontiac, Mich., — a city 30 miles outside of Detroit — when he was shot and killed by a person during an argument.
The following day, investigators told reporters Lee confronted two males sitting at a table and accused one of them of being a pedophile before punching him. Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said one suspect pulled out a knife while the other pulled a gun, shooting Lee multiple times.
But in an updated statement on Tuesday, Bouchard said this no longer appeared to be the case.
“When we originally responded to the call, the community inferred he could have been there for that reason, to confront a pedophile,” Bouchard told NBC News.
“As we get deeper in the investigation, we have yet to find any corroborative information on that point,” he added.