Maybe this latest story quoting Ms Roberts will finally convince some of you doubters.
Selena Roberts: Mike McNeil plea deal doesn't hurt his account of NCAA violations at Auburn
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By Brandon Marcello | bmarcello@al.com
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on April 08, 2013 at 2:30 PM, updated April 08, 2013 at 2:58 PM
Former Auburn football player Mike McNeil, who's charged with armed robbery along with three other teammates of an Auburn residence in 2011, appears for a hearing Thursday, April 4, 2013 at the Lee County Justice Center in Opelika, Ala. Former teammate Antonio Goodwin was convicted of armed robbery in March 2012 and is currently serving a 15 year sentence. (AP Photo/Opelika-Auburn News, Albert Cesare/Pool)
AUBURN, Alabama -- In the moments following Mike McNeil's plea deal stemming from a first-degree robbery charge, the author of a report citing wrongdoing by Auburn and alleged interference with due process wants to know if Auburn's police department will examine how it handled the Auburn safety's case.
"I would never presume to know what someone is facing in that situation would do," Selena Roberts, founder and CEO of Roopstigo.com, said when asked about the McNeil's plea deal. "Like I said, the story is about due process and the procedures that were followed and everything that led up to this moment with the trial and facing 21 years to life [in prison]. I would never try to be in the head and the heart of somebody who is facing that."
McNeil, a former Auburn safety, pleaded guilty today to a first-degree robbery charge in Lee County Court and will serve three years in jail and three years probation. He is the central figure in the Roopstigo.com report, which includes a detailed timeline on the night of his arrest in March 2011 and when police, his family alleges, withheld information.
Many of those details have been refuted by players quoted in the story, and through various sources and accounts in AL.com's reporting.
McNeil maintained his innocence through attorney Ben Hand over last two years before entering a guilty plea Monday morning in court.
In March 2011, Auburn's police department handled the investigation and arrests of four former Tigers in connection with an alleged home invasion.
Auburn police chief Tommy Dawson took issue with several points in Roberts' story, which quotes McNeil and members of his family. They say police withheld information and assured them his arrest was a "big misunderstanding."
"I'd like to be clear, I don't make any difference for a football player, a football coach, anybody," Dawson told AL.com last week. " I could care less what a football coach has to say. A football coach doesn't tell me how to run the Auburn police division."
Selena Roberts
Roberts says she hopes her story sheds more light on how Auburn's police department handles investigations, a key backdrop in her report last week, which includes allegations of multiple NCAA violations not connected to the arrests.
"You always say sunshine is the best disinfectant and the police chief thinks from a different perspective and from a different point of view," Roberts said. "... It's up to them to step back and say, 'Do we have a problem here?' Or to say we like the way we do things and we're going to stick with them."
Dawson says Roberts never contacted him before publishing the story.
Hand is quoted in the Roopstigo.com report as saying "Mike McNeil didn't rob anyone." McNeil asked that Hand be dismissed as his attorney during a status hearing Thursday in court but that request was denied.
"To show you how innocent he is, Mike is willing to go to trial because he says he didn’t do it,†Hand says in Roberts' report published Wednesday.
McNeil, upon entering the guilty plea, stopped short Monday of agreeing with the prosecutors' account of the 2011 home invasion.
"I was informed what they are trying to say is the truth, but I am not saying it is," McNeil said.
McNeil potentially faced a stiffer sentence if found guilty during the tial.
“The risks were so great we decided not to do it,†Hand said.
Hand characterized the incident as "what could be portrayed as possibly a prank." Hand said there was possible evidence supporting his claim that would have come out at trial.
Melodie Campbell, McNeil's mother, told Roopstigo.com police withheld information on the night of her son's arrest. She says she talked to a "Capt. Welch," who told her the arrest is a "big misunderstanding" and that they are "just waiting for coach to come." Dawson told AL.com Cory Welch works with the Lee County Sheriff's Department at the jail -- not the police department.
"They had nothing to do with this case," Dawson said. "All they did was house the prisoners when we took them over there, the suspects in the robbery, so I don't know where that's coming from."
Roberts frames her story with one crucial line: "Campbell would discover what happened to her son over a timeline that may prove to be a tripwire to imploding a powerful and storied athletic institution."
McNeil has not commented to reporters since he told Roberts he was offered money and also had a grade changed to stay eligible before the Tigers' march to the BCS national championship in the 2010 season. Sources close to the football program told AL.com last week McNeil's grades were not changed illegally. Florida coach Will Muschamp, a former defensive coordinator at Auburn, says he did not pay the former safety $400.
Roberts does not believe McNeil's plea deal, after two years of maintaining innocence, affects his credibility or his stories of NCAA rule-breaking at Auburn.
"Yeah, I think they're mutually exclusive in this case," Roberts said. "One dose not dovetail with the other on this one. In this profession reporters interview people facing trial, after trial, when they get out, before they go in."
Auburn has strongly refuted details in the report through a statement from athletic director Jay Jacobs. Former Auburn coach Gene Chizik has also denied the allegations.
Several players quoted in the story have also told AL.com and other media outlets they were misquoted or that details in the story are flat-out wrong. Roberts says some players she quoted in the story have contacted her since the report was published.
"I had a couple reach out to me, but I think those conversations are private," Roberts said. "Like I said all along, I think everybody I spoke to, I was grateful they spoke to me, and I certainly feel like they're good people."
McNeil played a big part in the Tigers' national championship season, recording 14 tackles in a 22-19 victory against Oregon in the BCS title game.
Prosecutors, with the backing of testimony from the victims, allege McNeil and former teammates Shaun Kitchens and Antonio Goodwin entered a residence in the Conway Acres Mobile Home Park on March 11, 2011 and robbed five college students while co-defendant Dakota Mosley waited in the getaway vehicle outside.
McNeil was one of two armed intruders and the only one carrying a real firearm, a .45-caliber handgun borrowed from former Auburn running back Mike Dyer, according to prosecutors.
Kitchens and Mosley are still awaiting trial. Goodwin was convicted of robbery in 2012 and is serving a 15-year sentence.
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