Broken promises & disposable players: The remarkable story behind a high school sports scandal

Andrea Aquino began her journey in Paraguay. At 6-foot-7, people in her village thought she was a freak -- all arms and legs clinging to the motorcycle she and her mother sold clothes from to support themselves.

Selwyn Rodriguez and Christian Ortiz started their odyssey in Puerto Rico. Once in the mainland United States, Ortiz slept on piles of laundry and cold floors, while Rodriguez lived with a stranger who openly used drugs.

And Blessing Ejiofor landed in the U.S. on the fast track to college, via Nigeria, but her dreams were crushed by the adults she trusted most. That trust has cost her a scholarship to Vanderbilt and forced her back to Africa, where she remains a prisoner of immigration rules.

Four players from three continents -- all bound by the same dream and pitch: Leave your friends and family behind, travel thousands of miles and use basketball to find a better life.

All four ended up in Paterson, playing for the powerhouse teams at Eastside High School, now the focus of multiple state and local investigations after a series of NJ Advance Media reports. The stories, including allegations of human trafficking, highlighted how players on the boys and girls teams suddenly and mysteriously arrived with promises of playing time, eventual college scholarships and new homes, according to interviews with players and internal school documents. Often, the players lived with coaches or other school employees.

Now, through interviews with players, parents, coaches and other sources, NJ Advance Media can trace the remarkable circumstances under which players were recruited, lured and even hijacked to New Jersey.

Their experiences cover six years and account for four of at least 13 players NJ Advance Media has identified as coming through Eastside's ambitious and bold pipeline.

Their stories, when taken together, reveal just how far a high school program would go to scour the earth for talent, only to then discard many of the same players.

'A VERY BIG LIE'

Selwyn Rodriguez never imagined a basketball journey that included meeting reporters in front of a giant bottle of seasoning salt.

But there he was Wednesday in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, at a massive Goya factory. He waved sheepishly when his name was called at a press conference for the Vaqueros de Bayamon. A few minutes later, the emcee hummed a few bars from "The Final Countdown" as a basketball-shaped mascot with a cowboy hat and bushy moustache made its grand entrance. Even the women making rice-and-beans in the back of the room stopped to snap photos.

The Vaqueros are a proud franchise in the country's top basketball league, and as their first-round draft pick this season, Rodriguez, a 6-foot-7 point guard, can carve out a nice career here. It is, for most players on this island, a dream come true.

But this wasn't his dream.

Rodriguez left Puerto Rico in 2011, chasing the promises of a coach from New Jersey -- his own apartment, a spot on an elite high school team and a Division 1 scholarship.

Instead, he ended up in a cramped, uncomfortable attic, fearful of the woman on the floors below, her drug habit and the visitors she attracted. The college scouts never came, either.

"We're not dumb people. We had faith. We had hope," said Selwyn's older brother, Esteban, who joined him in Paterson at their father's insistence. "We just needed one college scout to come and visit him, but nobody ever came. We came to Eastside on a very big lie."

They said they came because Juan Griles, the basketball coach at Eastside, sold a future that this working-class family from Caugas could not resist. Griles, the Rodriguezes said, approached the family after Selwyn led Puerto Rico to the Under-17 championship in a 2011 Central America tournament.

Rodriguez scored 20 points in a head-to-head matchup with Karl-Anthony Towns, who eventually became the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft. Griles, who played professionally in Puerto Rico and owned businesses there, told the family Rodriguez would get to face Towns, who played scholastically at St. Joseph's in Metuchen, and prove he was better.

"He made a lot of promises about the future, about getting Selwyn to a university, about getting him to Division 1," Selwyn's father, Edwin, said. "And I said, 'Yes!'

"I believe I did wrong."

Griles, as has been the case since NJ Advance Media broke the story two months ago, did not return multiple calls for comment.

Edwin Rodriguez said he paid Griles $900 a month for an apartment for Selwyn, then 17, and Esteban, then 24. Griles, he said, promised to handle the rest, leaving Edwin to assume his boys would be safe and comfortable.

He was horrified to discover the truth.

The apartment was an attic in a Paterson house without heat or air conditioning, the Rodriguezes said. Selwyn and Esteban added they rarely left that room because they feared what was happening downstairs.

The now-deceased woman who owned the house, the brothers said, was a drug addict who regularly used while they were upstairs. The smell of marijuana often wafted into their room, and they feared arguments downstairs eventually would escalate.

"We would come back from the theater or wherever and we found that woman on the ground many times," Esteban said. "On the patio, in the kitchen ... and we'd have to pick her up and bring her upstairs."

Said Edwin Rodriguez: "(Griles) basically put my sons' lives at risk putting them in this house with this drug addict. What if she owed money to drug dealers? What if they came knocking on the door?"

A furious Edwin Rodriguez -- who said he sent more than $60,000 to Paterson in two years for rent, food, clothing and other expenses -- moved his sons to another apartment in the fall of 2012.

The problems did not go away.

Selwyn tore his ACL in his very first game at Eastside. Griles, the Rodriguezes said, then became a ghost, leaving the brothers to taxi to doctor's appointments in Fort Lee. Selwyn's knee healed, but his relationship with the coach never did.

In his senior season, Rodriguez only played a few minutes per game. He was benched for a first-round state playoff game, and the reason seemed almost too cruel to believe. Griles, the Rodriguezes said, was angry Selwyn left practice early to receive an academic award.

Rodriguez had done well in the classroom and earned a scholarship offer to play volleyball at Purdue University. But Esteban, who admits crying when he read the first story about the Eastside scandal, said Selwyn was broken emotionally by Griles and couldn't wait to return to Puerto Rico after graduation in 2013.

In a practice last week with the Vaqueros, Selwyn finished every drill with a flourish. The veterans still call him "the rookie," but Selwyn hopes it'll be "Rookie of the Year" when the season ends.

Maybe that will ease his regrets. For now, however, he thinks about other opportunities he had after that big international tournament in 2011, and how his career might have been different had he never met Griles.

"Here in Puerto Rico, I was a top prospect," Selwyn, now 22, said as he sat on a weight bench in his carport adjacent to his grandmother's house. "I used to play great players that are already in the NBA. I used to play against them and perform good.

"I really thought for me, right now, I was supposed to be playing in the NBA."

'CAUGHT UP IN THE MIDDLE'

Blessing Ejiofor landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport in February 2014, working through a mental checklist of her new life in North Carolina. She had left Nigeria to play basketball and study at Evelyn Mack Academy in Charlotte, determined to earn a scholarship to an American college.

Ejiofor, then 15, had made her own arrangements, navigating the complicated immigration process. She said she had secured a student visa and Form I-20, which had been signed by officials at the North Carolina school.

But when she landed in Queens, Ejiofor was dealt an immediate and unimaginable surprise: North Carolina was out and she was headed to New Jersey and a school called Paterson Eastside. Ejiofor said she was greeted by a man she had never met or heard of -- Ray Lyde Jr., the girls coach at Eastside.

"When I asked why I wasn't going to North Carolina, I was told that I didn't have a ready host family," Ejiofor said in a conversation over social media. "I ended up in Jersey."

The connection was facilitated by Henry Ugboaja, the director of a prominent camp in Nigeria. In an interview, Ugboaja said officials at Evelyn Mack demanded money for room and board for Ejiofor and he refused. When he contacted Lyde, the coach offered a spot on his team and free housing. Lyde also told Ugboaja the school could accept international students with I-20s, Ugboaja said.

Lyde, in an interview before his team's season was suspended, refuted Ugboaja's story and denied any wrongdoing. "Nobody ever said anything to me about I-20s," Lyde said.

Ejiofor, now 18 after graduating from Eastside 10 months ago, didn't know it then, but she violated immigration laws when she entered Eastside, which is not authorized to issue I-20s. She said she learned of the problem after enrolling last summer at Vanderbilt, where she had earned a full athletic scholarship.

"I am innocent and didn't know any better," Ejiofor said. "I should have been properly advised by those (at the school) and told the implications because I didn't even know I was out of status.

"No one ever told me, and I wish someone did."

It was an unfortunate ending for Ejiofor, who otherwise excelled at Eastside. She earned a 3.7 grade-point average and graduated in the top 20 of her class, according to an article in the Paterson Times. She planned to study pharmacology at Vanderbilt.

And at 6-foot-5, Ejiofor led Eastside to a pair of Passaic County championships, earning scholarship offers from Duke, LSU, Syracuse, Rutgers and several others.

Off the court, Ejiofor said she lived in a home on East 22^nd Street owned by Shirley Jordan, whose daughter, Natalie, is a district teacher and an Eastside track coach. (Natalie Jordan also has been suspended by the district.) The split-level home sits on a congested street, about six blocks from Eastside. Ejiofor lived there with other Eastside girls and boys basketball players from Nigeria, including Juliet James and ThankGod Okenwa, according to school documents obtained by NJ Advance Media.

Ejiofor said the Jordans "did (their) best to make sure I was okay and comfortable."

Now, it all seems so far away.

"I'm the victim because I'm the one who is out of school for six months," Ejiofor said last month. "I am the one who has missed out (on) a school."

Ejiofor still hopes to return to the U.S. and pursue her dreams, but she said she has been denied a new visa three times.

"She's a mature, strong kid and she's hanging in there," Vanderbilt head coach Stephanie Smith said earlier this year. "She's obviously confused and doesn't understand what's going on. She deserves this opportunity.

"It's very unfortunate that she's caught up in the middle of something like this."

'HE OFFERED ME HEAVEN'

Christian Ortiz and his father, William, heard journalists from New Jersey were in Puerto Rico for a story on Eastside and drove 90 minutes from their home for an audience.

They had to be heard. Ortiz, an undersized point guard with electric ball-handling skills, said no journey was too long to dish on Juan Griles.

"I don't want him to coach again," Ortiz said from the arena in Bayamon. "I'm willing to go as far as I have to. This sounds crazy, but if I have to fly all the way back to (New Jersey), I will."

Ortiz arrived in Paterson unexpectedly in 2012. He was visiting family in Queens and playing for a club team in a tournament at Eastside. That's where Griles, he said, discovered him and recruited him to New Jersey. The promises were the same he made Rodriguez, his future teammate.

"It was like he offered me heaven," Ortiz said. Griles, he said, even bragged that he had contacts on the coaching staff at Rutgers, and that a Division 1 scholarship could be his if he came to Paterson.

"I can't say no to this," Ortiz, now 20, remembers thinking.

He came to New Jersey that fall, just before basketball season began, and moved into a house where Griles lived in Somerset. It didn't take long to realize the living situation wouldn't match the promises. Griles, Ortiz said, refused to stop for food after practice even after he repeatedly complained he was hungry.

"It was hell," Ortiz said. "He didn't have a bed (for me) so I was sleeping on a pile of clothes on the floor. It was freezing in the house. He told me he was going to get it fixed, but I couldn't handle that any more. I slept in the kitchen in front of the stove to stay warm."

Ortiz grew desperate. He told his father he needed a mattress and a TV, but even after the father sent $600 to buy both, they never materialized. A care package loaded with supplies from his mother, sent to the address in Somerset, never appeared, either. The officials at the post office insisted it was left in a safe place.

"He stole from me twice," Ortiz said.

He did not stick around for answers. Ortiz left Somerset and moved in with the Rodriguezes in their apartment in downtown Paterson. Soon, he said, the coach began ostracizing him during practice.

He asked to play with the junior varsity just to prove he belonged. But even after winning the MVP at a holiday tournament, Griles ignored him. Ortiz found himself leaving practice many nights in tears, wondering why this coach brought him to New Jersey if he didn't let him step onto the court.

"Papi, if I don't leave this place soon, it'll drive me crazy," he told his father in a phone conversation.

He left Paterson midway through the season and returned to Puerto Rico. Two years later, a newspaper named him West Virginia's Player of the Year -- his father proudly holds up the story for all to see. Ortiz then briefly played collegiately before pursuing a career in music and art.

Ortiz said he regrets not speaking up and challenging Griles or others at the school. And he regrets others who followed him encountered similar problems.

"A coach is supposed to be like another father to you," Ortiz said. "That's an even bigger responsibility when you're leaving home to play.

"Who's going to respect a coach like him?"

'THE OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME'

Andrea Aquino was treated like a curiosity in Caacupe, Paraguay, according to local coaches and an article on ESPN.com. She had sprouted to 6-foot-7 by the time she was 15, the tallest girl many in her small village had ever seen. Even adults gawked and teased her, the ESPN article said.

Those fortunes changed when a man in her neighborhood snapped photos of Aquino and sent them to the Paraguay Basketball Federation, which invited her to train alongside the country's finest players in the nation's capital. Once there, the mission began to crystallize. Aquino needed to get to the U.S., where she could develop her game, earn a college scholarship and potentially play professionally.

"She was treated like a freak because she was so tall," said a New Jersey coach familiar with Aquino who declined to be identified due to the delicacy of the situation. "Over there if you're that tall, you're like a monster. But over here, you're like a god."

Aquino made it to the U.S. after a Paterson resident named Felix Ayala discovered her playing on ESPN, according to an internal school report obtained by NJ Advance Media.

"He was very intrigued and impressed with her level and quality of skills and wanted to speak more in depth with her and her family about the opportunity of a lifetime," the report said.

In April 2015, the teenager moved to New Jersey, using a visa issued for a New York-based private school, the document said. Ayala promised to be the point of contact and to "make sure Andrea has everything that she needs," the report said. Ayala also told people he was related to Aquino, and the ESPN article refers to Aquino having a cousin in New Jersey.

After starting high school that spring, Aquino, who now stands 6-9, joined the powerhouse New Jersey Sparks AAU program. Some of the Sparks' coaches also are on the Eastside girls staff.

Jio Fontan, a former Sparks coach and now the head coach at Queen of Peace High, said he worked closely with Aquino early in her New Jersey stay.

"She didn't know any English, so I just kind of guided her through that," Fontan said. "I would just meet her at the gym and work out from there and take her to her game if need be. I didn't really get into her family situation or where she was staying."

But Aquino's living situation deteriorated soon after she was brought to Paterson, according to coaches and the school report. She lacked spending money, health insurance, winter supplies and even women's sanitary items, the report and other sources said.

Her stay with Ayala did not last long, according to coaches and the report, even though he is still listed as her guardian on school documents. "No, I'm not her legal guardian," Ayala said when reached by phone earlier this year. "You gotta call her coach and whoever. I would call the school about that."

In the fall of 2015, officials from her high school filed a report to the state Division of Child Protection and Permanency (formerly the Department of Youth and Family Services). The report painted a grim picture of an emotionally distressed and helpless teenager, thousands of miles from home.

"Felix had problems in his household, and after that, that girl went from place to place," said a coach familiar with the events in Aquino's life that fall. "Nobody wanted to spend the money once she got here. That's room and board, she has to eat and that takes money. So these guys got her over here and then everybody dropped the ball on her."

Aquino was moved to a Prospect Park apartment with a district employee, an arrangement that "was supposed to last a couple weeks." But the player stayed several months, and it was Lyde -- the Eastside girls coach -- who provided money for school uniforms and other living expenses, according to the employee, who asked not to be identified for fear of punishment from Paterson officials.

The turmoil weighed on Aquino, who confided in a teacher in 2015, according to the school report.

"As a result of the information that Andrea has shared, it is evident that Andrea may be the victim of neglect, child exploitation, emotional abuse and child endangerment," the report reads. "This is her cry for help."

Today, nearly two years after arriving in Paterson, Aquino's living situation has steadied, according to school officials.

She appears to be living in the home owned by Shirley Jordan where the Nigerian players also stayed; NJ Advance Media observed Aquino leave the home and head to school the morning of March 21. The Jordans have declined multiple requests for interviews, but Aquino appears to be well clothed, well cared for and her social media accounts suggest she is adjusting to life as an American teenager.

Aquino, now 18, also has blossomed on the court and will debut this month in ESPN's national Top 10 player rankings for the Class of 2018, according to Dan Olson, a girls basketball recruiting analyst. And she announced on social media late last month that she verbally has committed to Oregon State, a Top 10 Division 1 program.

Meanwhile, the adults linked to Aquino -- Ayala, Lyde, Sparks founder Shane Gerald and Sparks coach Keith Gilchrist -- have not responded to numerous phone calls and text messages asking about the player.

Olson, the recruiting analyst, said he watched Aquino play twice in January and marveled over her agility for a player of her size. He called her a "no-misser" talent-wise, but said "my heart goes out to the kid."

"Here I am sitting there watching her. I could have done something to help that kid," Olson continued. "I would have been able to pull names out of a hat pretty quick to be able to get her in the right direction. But how do you know?"

NJ Advance Media staff writer Matt Stypulkoski contributed to this report.

Matthew Stanmyre may be reached at mstanmyre@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattStanmyre. Find NJ.com on Facebook.