Former coach will not testify at Logan Young sentencing

Logan Young’s defense opted Friday against subpoenaing former Trezevant High coach Lynn Lang to testify at Young’s sentencing hearing, The Commercial Appeal newspaper reported.

“Even though Lynn Lang’s testimony is relevant to the sentencing, it is not that necessary,” explained defense attorney Robert Hutton.

Before the adjournment of Young’s sentencing hearing Thursday, the defense asked for and received a subpoena to return Lang to Memphis so he could confirm a Thursday report in The Commercial Appeal that alleged Albert Means and family were not innocent victims in the recruiting scandal.

Thursday’s revelation is important, defense attorney Jim Neal argued, because federal sentencing guidelines could give U.S. District Judge Daniel Breen reason to deliver a more severe sentence if it is determined Means was a “vulnerable victim.”

“What Mr. Lang is saying now is that Means and his family were up to their necks in this,” Neal said. “You cannot be a vulnerable victim if you are a willing participant.”

Lang told The Commercial Appeal he gave Means and his family “around $60,000” of the $150,000 he received from Young, a longtime Crimson Tide booster, for steering the prized prospect to Alabama. Neal said he wanted Lang to tell the same to Breen.

But now the defense believes the article stands on its own, and that Breen will consider it and Means’s non-denial during sentencing.

Asked by the newspaper whether he took large amounts of cash from his coach during the 1999-2000 school year, Means said, “Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable? I don’t know.”