DIRT UNDER THE CAP The Cash Cop Chronicles

This book gives the background of forensic accountant Charles Bennett and a blow by blow as to how he tackled one of the largest sports disputes between NBA owners and players in the 1990s. Related stories focus on other NBA-related forensic engagements of the author during the same time period. All were related to his work with the NBA PLAYERS ASSOCIATION (NBPA),

The Appendix includes related news articles from the time period that show how the main stories were reported in the media at the time.

W. Charles Bennett was born in East Chicago, Indiana. He was the sixth of 13 children born to Jerry and Elizabeth Bennett (Harris), who migrated to northern Indiana from Columbus, Georgia, in the 1940s. Growing up in the ghetto suburbs of Chicago forced Charles to learn survival and work skills at a very early age. By the age of 11, Charles had already worked as a shoe-shine boy and hustled local chores such as pulling weeds and shoveling snow. At the age of 12, he consolidated two paper routes into one. He hired delivery assistants and adopted street dogs for protection. He bagged groceries at a local area supermarket at age 16 and was later named head stock clerk.

Growing up with 15 people in a three-bedroom, one-bath, 500 square-foot home gave Charles all of the motivation that he needed to get out of the house and get involved in sports and recreational activities. He joined the East Chicago Boys Club at the age of eight and participated on their basketball and track teams while winning trophies in ping pong, pool, and boxing. He played baseball in the City's Elks and Kiwanis system and coached an East Chicago Little League team to an undefeated season after the head coach became ill.

Charles became a volunteer with the East Chicago Katherine House's (a local community center) recreation programs and began to learn leadership skills. He was a member of the Boy Scouts and earned the position of Jr. Assistant Scoutmaster. He was a member of the East Chicago Roosevelt Tennis Team and named Captain of the school's Intramural basketball All-Star Team. He joined a singing group in 1966 called the Soul Sensations. One of their top competitors was a local group out of Gary, Indiana, called the Jackson 5. During his senior year in high school (1970), he was awarded the first East Chicago Mayor's Award to a student for Volunteer Leadership.

Upon graduation from high school, Charles attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, where he majored in Economics and Business and "walked on" (unrecruited) to the school's basketball team.
While at DePauw, Charles founded a chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity and served as Treasurer of the Black Student Union (AAAS). He was also a member of the track team and a disc jockey on the University's radio station.

During his senior year at DePauw, Charles' closest brother, Thomas, was a murder victim in a street robbery in Los Angeles where he was living after serving two tours of duty in Vietnam. Charles immediately left the DePauw basketball program to focus on graduating, while heavily grieving the first loss of a family member.

Charles graduated from DePauw with a degree in Economics and Business in 1974 and was awarded a grant to attend the MBA program at Washington University in St. Louis. He graduated from Washington University in 1976 with honors and an MBA in Accounting. He went on to work for the International accounting firm of Ernst and Ernst before entering the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, in 1979.

Charles left the FBI in 1982 to coordinate criminal investigations for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in Washington, D.C. as a Senior Special Agent. Due to a federal rule in effect that required a "waiting period" for employees coming in from other agencies, FEMA encouraged him to start a private firm to help investigate fraud in the National Flood Insurance Program (funded by FEMA) during the 6-month waiting period.

Charles partnered with former Washington University classmate Louis G. Hutt to form the regional accounting firm of Bennett Hutt & Company with offices in Columbia, Maryland and Albuquerque. The firm in Albuquerque engaged in fraud investigations and preparing income tax returns for current and former FBI Agents in New Mexico.

Charles' law enforcement career lasted until 1996 (17 years) when FEMA eliminated its "Contract Employees" program in the Inspector General's division.

Charles retired from Bennett Hutt