Fox Jocks Received Improper Federal Escort

By BRETT POLLAKOFF

Updated 12:10 PM CST, Tue, Jan 13, 2009

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A federal lawyer improperly arranged for Fox sportscasters Troy Aikman and Joe Buck to receive transportation from U.S. marshals at the 2008 Super Bowl in Arizona, according to a report issued by the Department of Justice's inspector general says that.

The attorney, Joseph Band, also worked as a statistician for Fox, and arranged for Buck and Tim McCarver to receive a similar government escort at the 2007 World Series.

Not surprisingly, Dan Bell, the vice president for communications at Fox Sports, said in a statement that the network had no idea that having government employees chauffeur you around wasn't how things normally go down at large sporting events.

"At select events, he did offer transportation to some Fox Sports personnel,” Bell said in a statement. “We were unaware, however, that those arrangements were in any way inappropriate, and regret to learn now that they apparently were.”

Just to clarify: yes, it's inappropriate for a network to have its talking heads driven to and from sporting events by federal Marshals at the expense of the taxpayers.

Glad that we needed the inspector general to issue a report on what should be common sense, and which undoubtedly wasted even more of the taxpayers' money.

The worst part about this -- besides the feigned ignorance on the part of the network of course -- is that federal prosecutors declined to press criminal charges on Band, and only presented the findings to the U.S. Marshal Service for "appropriate action."

So basically, all of this ends up being a minor embarrassment for the network, and the government once again allows one of their own to get away with something without so much as a slap on the wrist.

[HT: FanHouse]