The Auburn Tigers had a man in their football department who nicknamed himself “Don Julio” and allegedly disseminated confidential recruiting information to other programs.
This is according to a report by Mark Schlabach and Alex Scarborough of ESPN, who cited an Auburn Police Department news release.
That man’s real name is David Rudolph Jenrath, 24, who turned himself in earlier this week and has been charged with theft of trade secrets and computer tampering. Both charges are felonies.
Jenrath’s LinkedIn profile, which is now defunct, said that he worked for Auburn football as a player personnel scouting assistant and specifically evaluated running backs and special teams.
It’s being alleged that he sent recruiting evaluations to multiple different schools, including at least one other SEC program.
According to the ESPN, which reviewed the charging documents, Jenrath “obtained and/or retained confidential, proprietary information consisting of Auburn University Athletics’ information, and/or knowingly made a copy or reproduction of Auburn University Athletics’ trade secrets and communicate or transmit a secret without the owners’ consent.”
He’s also being accused of “disclosing, using, controlling or taking computer programs and data with the intent to harass Auburn University Athletics by disclosing trade secrets and transmitting those secrets without the owners’ consent.”
A former Auburn staffer may be in hot water for leaking recruiting information
From Franklin, Tennessee, Jenrath went to school at Tennessee, where he studied sports analytics and applied artificial intelligence. It wasn’t identified which schools received information from Jenrath, though one has to wonder how damning this leak was for Auburn.
An SEC rival considered Mr. Julio’s transmissions to be “recruiting spam.”
“One member of an SEC front office told ESPN Tuesday he recalled Jenrath referring to himself as “Don Julio” when he sent the email, and the front-office staff member believed it was only recruiting spam,” wrote Schlabach and Scarborough.
Jenrath is being held on a $15,000 bond at the Lee County Jail in Auburn, Alabama.
Interestingly, the Tigers play Tennessee in Knoxville on Oct. 3.