President Trump personally intervened after three UCLA freshmen sparked an international incident and were jailed in China on a basketball trip. The players were in Hangzou for a basketball tournament when police arrested them for stealing from a store next to their hotel.
The president was in Beijing a for a two-day visit as part of a larger tour through Asia last week. Normally the State Department tries to intervene when Americans are detained overseas, but since President Trump was already there and meeting directly with Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping, he spoke out on behalf of the players.
Cody Riley, Jalen Hill and LiAngelo Ball were facing years in prison for shoplifting. However, a sentence can be reduced if a suspect confesses, apologizes and pays a fine, which the three players opted to do. President Trump says it was an unfortunate situation but at least it all worked out in the end. All three players have now been suspended from the UCLA team indefinitely, including LiAngelo Ball who is one of the UCLA coach LaVar Ball’s sons.
UCLA won its first game against Georgia Tech while the three players were actually in jail. All three of the freshmen players are back in the US today, while their teammates stayed behind in China for the rest of the tournament.
The three players personally thanked President Trump for intervening on their behalf to ensure that they didn’t have to spend years in a Chinese prison. Unfortunately one of the players fathers undercut his sons apology. See what father LaVar Ball had to say about President Trump intervening on his son’s behalf in the clip below.
