LiAngelo Ball and his two UCLA teammates weren't in danger of going to jail after shoplifting in China, as most seemed to believe. While the freshmen did commit an act of theft and were interrogated by local police, ESPN's Arash Markazi made sure to emphasize the teenagers were never arrested in the first place, as several media outlets reported.
I know facts get lost in a story about tweets but I really wish news outlets would stop saying the UCLA players were in jail or freed from jail. This is the hotel they were at for a week. They weren’t even under “house arrest.” They were free to leave the hotel if they wanted to. pic.twitter.com/IwSuhqVYcK
— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) November 22, 2017
Ball, along with teammates Cody Riley and Jalen Hill were interrogated inside the very hotel they were staying at after stealing sunglasses from a Louis Vuitton store in close proximity to the team's hotel. President Donald Trump went on a self-boasting series of tweets during his stay in China, noting his intent to push for a resolution for these basketball players with local leader Xi Jinping.
The players were consequently released shortly after, and Trump was quick to shower himself in roses by denouncing the three teenagers for not thanking him, saying that if it weren't for him, they could face up to 10 years in jail.
Well… that was proven wrong in this article.
But the players soon did thank him the next day upon UCLA's no-questions-asked press conference held at the Pauley Pavilion arena. This was of course undone once LiAngelo's father, the often-opinionated LaVar Ball, told the press Trump had done nothing for his son, and even after a lengthy back-and-forth with Trump and a consequent CNN interview to follow, he was proven right (h/t UpRoxx's Ryan Nagelhout).
This isn't meant to diminish what the players did or the efforts of others, including the president, in getting them home; it is simply meant to add context and perspective to a story that has been stripped of both.
— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) November 23, 2017
The goods stolen were priced at 4,900 yuan or $750, which according to Chinese law, could only garner between one and two years in jail, likely opening the possibility the sentence can be mitigated if they confess, show remorse, and pay the rightful compensation for the goods.
Donald Trump's ill-advised tweet went from 10 years, to none whatsoever — as a coalition of agencies were looking to solve this situation as smoothly as possible.
While this isn't taking away from the players' fault, it's meant to set the record straight into an issue that was misconstrued by jumping to conclusions and blown completely out of the realm of reality by a president that couldn't even bother to check his facts before pressing “tweet.”
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