Basketball Players' Apartment Wrongly Cleaned Out

Two players with the Tulsa 66ers basketball team recently had everything they owned stolen from their apartment. It wasn't a random break-in, but done by sub-contractors of the apartment complex.

Tuesday, January 15th 2008, 8:23 pm

By: News On 6


Two players with the Tulsa 66ers basketball team recently had everything they owned stolen from their apartment. It wasn't a random break-in, but done by sub-contractors of the apartment complex. News On 6 crime reporter Lori Fullbright reports the players say the theft is bad enough, but the situation is made worse because they feel the apartment complex isn't taking responsibility for its mistake.

Glen McGowan and Jeremy Kelly are members of the NBA development league team, the Tulsa 66ers. They're on the road a lot, but when they're home, the team rents apartments at the Highlands at 61st and Memorial for players.

They returned on December 29th to a totally empty apartment. Their furniture, bedding, clothes, jewelry, TVs, photo albums and personal papers were all gone.

"Everything, ice cubes in refrigerator, toilet paper, gone, empty," said Jeremy Kelly.

Tulsa police say they were told by a complex manager that the players had to be switched to a different apartment because of a water main break, but the new apartment wasn't properly noted on the books.

So, it appeared to another manager it was available and they instructed a sub-contractor to get it ready for a move-in. The sub-contractors saw the apartment was full, so they called their boss, who told them to go ahead. Rather than box up the items or put them in storage, police say the four men stole everything they wanted and trashed the rest. In fact, they moved much of it into an apartment above the players.

Police did find some of the stuff. The suspects were using the victims' razors, bedding, clothes; they even found some of their basketballs.

Police estimate about 10% of the players' stuff was returned, mostly furniture and TVs, but not other valuables or personal items.

"I had photo albums, pictures of my childhood, digital video cassettes of when I was in college, vacations, stuff, priceless items, stuff passed down from my grandfather. Those are things we'll never ever get back," said Glen McGowan.

A manager with the Highlands told The News On 6 it's their policy not to comment to the media and refused to answer many questions about the case. They did tell say the workers had been fired.

Four workers, Ryan Navarro, Jonathan Farmer and Brock and Briston Hilligoss have been charged with grand larceny.

The two players have been living in hotel rooms since the incident.

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