One thing about professional athletes is that they aren’t immune to making horrible life decisions, both during and after their careers. Many of them end up going broke due to bad financial decisions. Others end up in jail because they got tangled up with the wrong crowd. Every Chicago Bears fan remembers the story of Sam Hurd and his drug ring. Well, he is no longer the only former player from this team who has found himself on the wrong side of the law. Former cornerback Buster Skrine is in that conversation now.
The veteran signed with Chicago in 2019, hoping to replace the departed Bryce Callahan. While he was never anything special, Skrine was a decent enough player for their secondary that season. However, he didn’t survive long after that, getting the boot midway through 2020. Skrine played one more year in 2021 and failed to crack another roster after that.
That is where the problem began.
Two years later, in August 2023, he was arrested on bank fraud charges, having used fraudulent checks to scam banks out of $100,000 in Canada. He was arrested when trying to flee back to the United States. Somehow, it has gotten even worse. According to Bryann Aguilar of CP24, Skrine no-showed his appointed court hearing after getting out on bail. Police are now hunting for him.
A former NFL player out on bail while facing fraud charges in the Greater Toronto Area is wanted after he failed to attend court earlier this week and his GPS monitor was disconnected.
On Wednesday, Durham Regional Police said 34-year-old Darryl Frank Skrine is wanted for failing to appear and failing to comply with a release order.
Skrine, who played in the NFL for 11 seasons, was supposed to attend court on May 6 but was a no-show. Police said his court-ordered GPS monitor had also gone offline.
The Chicago Bears are glad to have that headache far behind them.
It is difficult to understand what Skrine was thinking. Here is a guy who spent 11 seasons in the NFL and made over $40 million. Yet he put his freedom and future at risk over $100,000. The only explanation for this behavior is he somehow lost all of that money and was desperate. Either that, or he got a twisted thrill out of scamming banks for their money. Whatever the case may be, his logic must be that he will be safe if he can somehow find his way back into the U.S. That won’t help him.
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The United States has an extradition agreement that means it would return any criminal facing charges in Canada to Canadian authorities. In other words, Skrine is screwed no matter what. The only way he escapes justice at this point is by not getting caught. That seems unlikely. The former Chicago Bears cornerback was dumb enough to get involved in that hair-brained scheme to begin with. It seems doubtful he will be able to evade authorities for long. What an unfortunate fall from grace for a once-good player.
At least he wasn’t smoking marijuana or kneeling during a song.
Invest your money wisely kids if you ever come across an abundance.
CTE is my guess
More importantly, I hated to see Callahan leave the Bears.
Perhaps he was abused and neglected by his parents and the bullies took his lunch money. You never get over that sort of mistreatment.