Former Alabama defensive lineman facing charges for impersonating 3 NFL players to fraudelently obtain nearly $20M in loans

Former Alabama DL Luther Davis (No. 96) was a member of the Crimson Tide's 2009 national championship team. (Photo by Bob Rosato /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)

(Bob Rosato via Getty Images)

Former Alabama defensive lineman Luther Davis is facing federal charges for allegedly impersonating three NFL players to fraudulently receive loans in their names.

Davis, a member of Alabama’s 2009 team that won the national championship, obtained almost $20 million in loans with a business partner. The players initials are only identified in the charging documents from the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Georgia, but the Guardian reports that the three are Atlanta Falcons QB Michael Penix Jr., Green Bay Packers safety Xavier McKinney and current free agent TE David Njoku.

The players had no knowledge of the schemes as they were happening and Davis is reportedly set to plead guilty to the federal charges at a hearing on April 27.

From the Guardian:

“Beginning no later than in or around May 2023 and continuing through in or about October 2024, the defendant, Luther Davis, and CJ Evins, executed a scheme to fraudulently obtain millions of dollars in loans from multiple lenders, including, but not limited to, Aliya Sports and All Pro Capital Funding, by impersonating professional football players and falsely claiming those players were seeking multi-million dollar Loans,” federal prosecutors charged.

The alleged scheme involved several stages. First, Davis and Evins would register at the Georgia secretary of state companies with names closely related to the impersonated player’s name or initials, the CI filing said. They would allegedly open bank accounts for these fake companies, and then create fraudulent email accounts that were purportedly used by the players they were impersonating.

Davis is accused of giving lenders fake identifications with the players’ names and also even dressing up to pretend to be the players’ for in-person meetings. Per the report, “Davis wore a wig and provided the notary a fake driver’s license with a made-up number” when getting a loan in McKinney’s name “and for the fake Penix closing on [July 25, 2024], Davis wore a drag and provided a fake Florida driver’s license.”

In 2013, Yahoo Sports reported that Davis engaged in over $40,000 worth of transactions with NFL agents and financial advisers while acting as an intermediary between them and five college football players, including former Alabama offensive lineman D.J. Fluker and former Mississippi State defensive lineman Fletcher Cox.

At the time, those transactions were against NCAA rules, as players had long been unable to take money from agents or profit off their own image rights until the NCAA overhauled its amateurism rules in the 2020s.

Davis appeared in 45 games across four seasons with the Crimson Tide. He appeared in 14 games his junior season as Alabama beat Texas in the BCS national championship game for the first national title of Nick Saban’s tenure with the school. He had 47 career tackles and eight tackles for loss.

He was a four-star prospect when he was recruited to Alabama.