A New Orleans-area couple posed for years as star college basketball and football players, including Tennessee Titans quarterback Cam Ward and LSU alum Leonard Fournette, to pocket millions from investors as part of a yearslong loan scam, a newly unsealed federal indictment alleges.

The 10-count indictment accuses Albert “Paul” Weber and Cyntrelle Lash, who live in Jefferson Parish, of convincing investors to fork over cash for huge “bridge loans” — investments they said would cover high-profile athletes’ living, training and debt costs as they left college and prepared to enter the National Basketball Association and the National Football League.

The investors thought they would be made whole, plus interest, once the athletes’ pro paychecks started flowing. But the returns on their investments never came.

The indictment alleges Weber and Lash made pitches to lenders using fake email addresses, driver’s licenses and W-2 forms, often posing online and in phone calls as the athletes, their family members or associates. Once lenders wired money, they would launder it through a company owned by Lash, who shares a child with Weber, the feds say. In total, the pair are accused of pocketing more than $3 million.

Both are charged with wire fraud, conspiracy, money laundering and six counts of aggravated identity theft.

Weber, who ran a firm called Weber Music & Sports Entertainment, faces two additional counts of interstate communication of a threat. A federal public defender assigned to the case, Annalisa Miron, declined to comment Tuesday because she was still reviewing the charges.

Some of the allegations against Weber and Lash became public last fall when the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office arrested them on state counts of forgery and identity theft. At the time, officials said the couple had posed as Ward, the Titans quarterback and last year’s first overall NFL draft pick, and Ward’s father to secure $250,000 in bogus loans. A player described in the new indictment appears to be Ward based on the timing of the alleged scheme and amounts the feds say were stolen, though none of the athletes are identified by name.

An FBI memo identifies Fournette, a New Orleans native and Buffalo Bills running back, as the other pro football player whose identity Weber used.

The scope of the alleged fraud detailed in the indictment, which a grand jury returned Friday and a judge ordered unsealed Monday, appears far broader than the initial allegations suggested. Six athletes, including two each who would go on to the NFL and NBA, and a handful of sports agents are said to be victims of the scheme that ran from 2016 through last year. The FBI began investigating Weber in 2023, an agent wrote in court documents.

Weber and Lash sometimes also sometimes used fake identities to lure less-prominent aspiring professional basketball players and agents into paying for bogus overseas trips meant to set them up with business opportunities, the indictment says.

Yearslong scheme

College athletes were forbidden from accepting compensation outside of scholarship money until 2021, when the NCAA introduced its new “name, image and likeness” policy. Spokespeople for the NFL and the NBA did not respond to requests for comment, and the NCAA did not respond to inquiries.

The four pro prospects are described in the indictment as “Football Player 1,” who the document says left an NCAA football program in 2017; “Football Player 2,” who left college in 2025; “Basketball Player 1,” who left college in 2021; and “Basketball Player 2,” who left in 2023.

Football Player 1 appears to be Fournette, according to an FBI memo that describes portions of Weber’s allegations as “The Leonard Fournette Scheme.”

Football Player 2 appears to be Ward, last year’s top NFL draft pick whom JPSO officials previously identified as a victim of the alleged scheme. Lash and Weber secured more than $250,000 by impersonating Ward alone, according to JPSO officials and the federal indictment. Ward’s father told The Guardian newspaper that he sensed something may have been amiss after learning a lien had been taken out on his home without his knowledge.

Three “victim lenders” who invested in what they thought were bridge loans are also described in the indictment as victims of the scheme. So are two sports agents who helped aspiring professional athletes connect with opportunities in foreign leagues, as well as two “aspiring professional basketball players” in Florida and Texas.

The feds say the scheme started in 2016, when an investor lent Weber $300,000 for the player who appears to be Fournette, with the money intended to help him close out debts and pay off a sports agency contract. The lender wired money to an account belonging to an unnamed associate of Weber’s. The associate withdrew the deposit in cash and gave most of it to Weber, the indictment says.

Fournette’s name appears to be redacted in portions of the FBI memo that names him as an identity theft victim. He left LSU and was drafted fourth overall by the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2017, the same year Football Player 1 left the NCAA, according to the indictment. The memo says Weber posted as his “mentor.” Fournette could not immediately be reached.

In 2021, Weber and Lash impersonated Basketball Player 1 and his father using fake email addresses, driver’s licenses and a forged agreement notarized in the athlete’s name in New Orleans, the indictment says. The lender agreed to pay $950,000 and wired them the money. Lash and Weber then wired more than $850,000 of the money to a Gulf Coast Bank account registered to a firm owned by Lash called iPrestigio, the indictment alleges.

In 2023, the indictment says the pair set up a bank account, forged a driver’s license and a drafted a fake W-2 form in Basketball Player 2’s name, then used the forgery to to secure more than $2 million from several lenders.

Former college player himself

Weber is also charged with threatening two victims in Oregon who he believed had “stirred up this shit,” telling them he knew “gangsters” who lived near the victims.

Weber appears to be a former athlete himself. College athletics records list an Albert Weber as a member of the Alabama Crimson Tide men’s basketball team during the 2004-2005 season. Weber played shooting guard and averaged 2.2 points in nine minutes per game.

A top player in the 2023 NBA draft class, Brandon Miller, played for Weber’s alma mater and was picked second overall in the draft by the Charlotte Hornets that year — the same year “Basketball Player 2” left college for the pros, according to the indictment. Miller did not respond to an Instagram message.

Court records show Weber is set to enter a plea in federal court on Friday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nick Moses is prosecuting the case against Weber and Lash