The NFL Players Association and NFL Security have concluded that sports agent David Caravantes and marketing company New Era Sports used an attorney to try and force USC running back Reggie Bush to pay them $3.2 million after Bush decided not to sign with the group, sources told ESPN's Joe Schad on Thursday.
According to the sources, Caravantes threatened to reveal embarrassing personal information about the Bush family if he did not receive the money. Sources also say Caravantes tried to evict the family from a San Diego house they rented from his business associate Michael Michaels.
Calls to the offices of Caravantes and New Era Sports were not returned on Thursday and several calls have not been returned this week.
The house rental is still the subject of an investigation by the NCAA and the Pac-10. Officials have contacted Bush's attorney and told him they will wait until after this weekend's NFL draft to conduct interviews on how payments were made on the house. Bush's family no longer lives there.
In an interview on ESPN on Monday, Bush did not get into specifics about the controversy but said, "when this is all said and done, everyone will see at the end of the day that we've done absolutely nothing wrong."
Also, a source close to Bush said NFL Security has contacted the top four teams in the NFL draft and told them Bush was the victim of threats.
An attorney representing Bush says that his client had no knowledge of an agreement between his parents and Michaels, the man who owned the $750,000 home the Bush family lived in for the past year.