The Cleveland Browns announced Wednesday that they’ve released LB Mychal Kendricks after he was charged for insider trading.
Here’s the statement from John Dorsey on Kendricks:
“Prior to signing Mychal, we were informed that there was a financial situation that he had been involved with in 2014. We were told Mychal had fully cooperated with investigators as a victim. From what was communicated at that time and based on the numerous questions we asked and further due diligence on our part, including checking with the league office, there was no information discovered that conveyed otherwise.
“Recently, we were provided an update on the matter and the circumstances have changed. We are now dealing with a different set of facts and the additional information we’ve gathered has led us to the decision to release Mychal from our team. Due to the ongoing legal nature of this situation, we will have no further comments.”
Kendricks and ‘Black-ish’ TV writer Damilare Sonoiki have been charged by way of a criminal information. Sonoiki was “brazenly” passing along insider information to Kendricks from 2013-2015.
For the information, Kendricks allegedly provided $10,000 in cash and Eagles tickets, per Jeremy Roebuck. The two men made nearly $1.2 million off of the insider trading scheme.
Roebuck adds that the SEC says they were able to link trades in Kendricks’ trading account to an IP address associated with Sonoiki.
Kendricks, 27, is a former second-round pick of the Eagles back in 2012. He was entering the fourth year of his five-year, $29.896 million contract that included $16.4 million guaranteed and set to make a base salary of $5.85 million for the 2018 season when the Eagles designated him as a post-June 1 release a few months ago.
The Browns later signed Kendricks to a one-year contract worth a maximum of $3.5 million.
According to OverTheCap.com, releasing Kendricks will free up $1,728,125 of available cap space while creating $500,000 in dead money.
In 2017, Kendricks appeared in 15 games for the Eagles and recorded 77 tackles, two sacks and six pass defenses for the Eagles.
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