Tom GantertEl Paso, TX – Cleveland Browns offensive lineman Greg Robinson was arrested on Monday after he was caught with 157 pounds of marijuana in his rental car at a United States-Mexico border checkpoint.
Robinson, 27, was driving from Los Angeles to Louisiana in a rental car with his former Auburn University football teammate, Quan Bray, who now plays for the Canadian Football League, Business Insider reported.
Bray also played in the National Football League (NFL) for three years for the Indianapolis Colts.
Authorities said that Robinson rented the vehicle in Los Angeles and arranged to have an Uber driver he met in 2018 drive the vehicle to Louisiana, Business Insider reported.
Jail records showed that Robinson’s home address was listed as being in Thibodaux, Louisiana, ESPN reported.
But Bray was driving when a U.S. Border Patrol drug-sniffing K9 alerted on the car as it approached the Sierra Blanca Checkpoint Station near the US-Mexico border.
Once the dog smelled marijuana, a border patrol agent radioed ahead and the car was searched at the checkpoint, ESPN reported.
Agents searched and found 157 pounds of marijuana in black, vacuum-sealed bags in the back of the rental car, Business Insider reported.
The criminal complaint said that the contents of the bag tested positive for marijuana, ESPN reported.
Robinson and Bray were arrested and booked into the El Paso County Jail.
The complaint said the Uber driver who was in the car with the football players was not charged, ESPN reported.
The Uber driver showed officers text messages from Robinson offering to pay them to claim the marijuana was theirs.
The texts showed that Uber driver refused to take responsibility for the drugs and said they wouldn’t have agreed to make the trip with the football players if they had known about the marijuana, ESPN reported.
Both Robinson and Bray were being held without bond ahead of a court appearance on Friday, Business Insider reported.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas said that if the football players were convicted, they faced up to 20 years in prison each for attempting to transport the drugs.
The NFL hasn’t weighed in on the arrests.
“We are aware of the report but will decline further comment,” an NFL spokesperson said, according to NFL.com.
Robinson has made $29.1 million in salary over his five-year NFL career, including $6.4 million in 2019 with the Cleveland Browns, ESPN reported.
The Browns had told Robinson they would not re-sign him at the end of the 2019 season.
Robinson was the second pick of the first round in the 2014 NFL draft for the St. Louis Rams.
In 2017, the Rams traded Robinson to the Detroit Lions for a 2018 sixth-round draft pick.
The Lions waived Robinson at the end of the season and Cleveland Browns signed him in 2018.
However, Robinson’s 2019 season started poorly when he was ejected in the second quarter of the season opener for kicking Tennessee Titan safety Kenny Vaccaro in the head and was fined $10,527 for unnecessary roughness, according to NFL.com.
Bray played in the NFL from 2015 to 2017, ESPN reported.