A former student athlete turned assistant coach at California State University, Bakersfield is facing a slew of serious charges, including pimping, firearms trafficking and possession of child sexual abuse material, after an investigation last year led to his arrest.
In Aug. 2025, the university launched an investigation into assistant men’s basketball coach Kevin Mays after longtime Roadrunners basketball coach Rod Barnes received an anonymous email claiming Mays was trafficking a young woman in California, Oregon, Washington and Nevada, ESPN first reported.
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Barnes turned the email over to university police, who corresponded with the tipster in a second email that claimed they knew Mays and the victim from previous sex work.
The tipster said that Mays posed as a professional gambler and had reportedly threatened to kidnap their child if they tried to report his illicit activities, the Los Angeles Times reported.
In a statement obtained by The Times, CSUB officials said when they received the anonymous tip, they “took immediate action in notifying university police and the Bakersfield Police Department.”
Mays was arrested in Sept. 2025 after Bakerfield police detectives conducted a sting operation, where they arranged to meet the 23-year-old victim, who advertised prices of $300 a half hour and $500 for an hour, in a hotel room reportedly rented for her by Mays.
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The young woman described Mays as her boyfriend and mentioned that he paid for her travel to the locations listed in the tipster’s anonymous email.
Cal State Bakersfields Kevin Mays during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game in the Western Athletic Conference tournament Thursday, March 12, 2015, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Ronda Churchill)
A native of Queens, New York, Mays came to CSUB from Texas ahead of the 2014-2015 basketball season and helped lead the team to a 24-10 record as a senior forward. Barnes, his former coach, gave Mays a $3,000 a month job as player-development coordinator in 2019, The Times reported.
While his alleged crimes did not involve a student, CSUB officials formed a commission to look at the athletic department and suggest any needed changes in the wake of the scandal.
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Coach Rod Barnes later left his job, as did athletic director Kyle Conder, who has since filed a wrongful termination lawsuit in L.A. County Superior Court against the university.
Mays, who has been held without bail since his arrest last year, faces 11 charges, including pimping, possession of automatic firearms and high-capacity magazines, possession of methamphetamine and marijuana with intent to sell, possession of more than 600 images of youth or child pornography and distribution of obscene matter involving a person under the age of 18.
He has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to appear in court on March 13.
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