Former Reggie Bush marketing agent linked to Saints bounty scandal

Among those implicated by the NFL in the “pay-for-performance” bounty scandal of the New Orleans Saints is Mike Ornstein, former marketing agent for Reggie Bush.

Ornstein, who served eight months in prison in 2010 for conspiring to scalp Super Bowl tickets and sell fake “game-worn” jerseys, is close friends with Saints Coach Sean Payton as well as many of the team’s players and executives.

Ornstein is well known and well connected in NFL circles, having spent years working for the Raiders, and later as a consultant on Super Bowl teams in Green Bay and Baltimore.

Citing an internal NFL memo sent to the 32 teams, CBSSports.com reported that Ornstein on at least four occasions pledged $5,000 to $10,000 to the New Orleans bounty pool from 2009 to 2011.

In a story about Ornstein in its Friday edition, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that he and Saints owner Tom Benson had a clash just days before Super Bowl XLIV in the team hotel.

The incident was so bad that Ornstein threatened to quit his unofficial consultant duties and leave town, but team officials talked him out of it, the newspaper reported. He eventually wound up with a Super Bowl ring.

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