{"id":212622,"date":"2026-03-10T04:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T04:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/212622\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T04:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T04:06:08","slug":"cal-state-basketball-player-turned-coach-moonlighted-as-pimp-police-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/212622\/","title":{"rendered":"Cal State basketball player turned coach moonlighted as pimp, police say"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

In Aug. 2025, the university launched an investigation into assistant men\u2019s basketball coach Kevin Mays\u00a0after longtime Roadrunners basketball coach Rod Barnes\u00a0received an anonymous email claiming Mays was trafficking a young woman in California, Oregon,\u00a0Washington\u00a0and\u00a0Nevada,\u00a0ESPN first reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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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\u00a0previous\u00a0sex work.<\/p>\n

The tipster said that Mays posed as a professional gambler and had\u00a0reportedly threatened\u00a0to kidnap their child if they tried to\u00a0report his illicit activities, the Los Angeles Times reported.<\/p>\n

In a statement obtained by\u00a0The Times, CSUB officials said when\u00a0they\u00a0received the anonymous tip, they \u201ctook immediate action in notifying university police and the Bakersfield Police Department.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u00a0prices of $300 a half hour and $500 for an hour, in a hotel room\u00a0reportedly rented for her by Mays.<\/p>\n

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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\u2019s anonymous email.<\/p>\n

\"Kevin<\/a><\/p>\n

Cal State Bakersfield\u0092s 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)<\/p>\n

A native of Queens, New York, Mays came to CSUB from Texas ahead of the 2014-2015 basketball season and helped lead the\u00a0team to a 24-10 record as a senior forward.\u00a0Barnes, his former coach, gave Mays a $3,000 a month job as player-development coordinator in 2019,\u00a0The\u00a0Times reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While his alleged crimes did not involve a student, CSUB officials formed a\u00a0commission\u00a0to look at the athletic department and\u00a0suggest any needed changes\u00a0in the wake of the scandal.<\/p>\n

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Rihanna\u2019s L.A. home struck by gunfire while pop star reportedly inside <\/a><\/p>\n

Coach Rod Barnes later left his job, as did athletic director Kyle Conder, who has since filed a\u00a0wrongful\u00a0termination lawsuit in L.A. County Superior Court against the university.<\/p>\n

Mays, who has been held without bail since his arrest last year, faces 11 charges, including\u00a0pimping,\u00a0possession 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\u00a0obscene matter involving a person under the age of 18.<\/p>\n

He has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to appear in court\u00a0on\u00a0March 13.<\/p>\n

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Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former student athlete turned assistant coach at California State University, Bakersfield is facing a slew of serious…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[26205,29213,151,153,152,2454,10658,5529,26595,23326,23327],"class_list":["post-212622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-anonymous-email","tag-assistant-coach","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news","tag-basketball","tag-basketball-coach","tag-california-state-university","tag-csub","tag-kevin-mays","tag-rod-barnes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}