By Alabama Public Radio
Memphis, TN – A jury will begin deliberations Wednesday in the trial of Logan Young. He's the Memphis businessman charged with bribing a high school coach to get a top football recruit for the University of Alabama. Coach Lynn Lang says Young paid him $150,000 to get Albert Means to attend Alabama in 2000. Means was a defensive lineman. He has testified that he allowed Lang to choose his college. Lang, meanwhile, has pleaded guilty to taking a bribe and is awaiting sentencing for racketeering conspiracy. He was the chief witness for the prosecution, who said in closing arguments that bank and phone records back up his tetsimony. But defense lawyer James Neal told the jury that Lang is unreliable because of a long history of lying about the case. Alabama's recruitment of Means became part of an NCAA investigation that led to sanctions in 2002 depriving the Crimson Tide of scholarships and bowl eligibility. Means attended Alabama but transferred to the University of Memphis. He was never implicated in criminal wrongdoing.