Update: District suspends coaches at center of investigation

PATERSON -- At exactly 7:58 a.m. on the final Thursday in January, the front door opened to a condominium on a busy street in the eastern part of the city.

Juan Griles, head coach of the powerhouse Paterson Eastside High School boys basketball team, shuffled out the front door. He was followed by his starting point guard, who hails from Puerto Rico and is the son of a former NBA player. The pair hopped in the coach's white BMW, backed out of a parking spot and headed down the street.

Over the next 27 minutes, five more Eastside players exited the two-bedroom, 922-square-foot condo and began their six-block walk to school. They were: a starting forward and a key reserve player, both from Puerto Rico; a limping 7-foot-2 Nigerian; and two other lean, athletic-looking Nigerian players.

All six players, according to student profiles in a district database obtained by NJ Advance Media, are 17 or 18 years old and have enrolled the past two years -- two in 2015 and four since September. As recently as last week, five of the boys listed Griles, 50, as their legal guardian and claimed his condo on East 19th Street as their primary address. The other player listed Eastside assistant coach Alberto Maldonado as his guardian.

If the living arrangement and murky guardianship situation sounds unusual, consider:

The state Division of Child Protection and Permanency (formerly known as the Division of Youth and Family Services) is investigating the whereabouts and safety of the teenagers, how they arrived in Paterson and who has legal custody, according to sources familiar with the matter who spoke to NJ Advance Media on the condition they not be identified. The people asked to remain anonymous because they are not authorized to speak publicly.

New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association assistant director Larry White said the situation at Eastside could violate several state rules regarding recruiting,

Several people within the school district expressed concern about the players, fearful the boys were being moved from place to place without concern for their welfare. One player, a source within the district said, was told he needed to leave the condo because the food now belonged to another player who had just arrived. Another player was in tears at school because he feared being sent away.

One player said Griles did not provide enough food in the house and that dinner was spaghetti for "a whole two weeks" or "just a loaf of bread to last two people for like two weeks." The player, who also spoke on the condition his name not be used, said the teens sometimes would seek out food at a local church, often had to fend for themselves on weekends and that "we didn't eat anything" on Thanksgiving.

In a mostly state-funded public school district where it costs nearly $16,000 to educate a student, some are questioning why taxpayers are footing the bill for six players not from Paterson, while saying the athletes are taking spots from home-grown kids in a city where basketball is perhaps the most popular sport.

Meanwhile, in the sometimes cutthroat and always competitive world that is New Jersey high school basketball, the status of the six players and the actions of the coaches have sparked intense scrutiny and even jolted those who thought they had seen it all.

"It's absolutely ridiculous what's going on in this state," said Phil Colicchio, the long-time coach at Linden High, one of Eastside's biggest rivals in the Group 4 section. "Is winning a state championship that important to people's lives that you'd have six kids living with you?

"I don't care if you gave me LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Chris Paul, they're not living with me."

Over the course of four mornings in late January and as recently as Thursday, NJ Advance Media observed the same pattern at Griles' condo: The coach would leave with the point guard around 8, and the remaining players would stagger departures over the next 30 minutes. The trailing players would either walk alone, in tandem or once in a group as big as three.

Three Paterson Eastside basketabll players leave the home of Eastside head coach Juan Griles.

The only departure from the routine came Thursday when five players emerged. The sixth, according to two people familiar with the situation at Eastside, had been exiled from the house permanently. A week earlier, that player was found alone and hungry by a district teacher after spending a night alone in a local Dunkin' Donuts, sources said.

It's not clear how the players made their way to Eastside, although two Nigerian players transferred to the school from Idaho, according to their student files. The third Nigerian player appears to have played for a private school in Connecticut last year, and he also was listed on the 2016-17 roster of a post-graduate program in Delafield, Wisc. (NJ Advance Media is not naming the players because of the likelihood some or all are now the subject of a Division of Child Protection and Permanency investigation, and questions remain about their ages.)

When questioned Wednesday at Eastside before practice, Griles denied any wrongdoing, saying "everything we do here is legit." He admitted being legal guardian to two players from Puerto Rico, and said he has paperwork to prove it, although he has yet to produce it. Griles also said he used to live in Puerto Rico, has "lineage" there and is the godfather to one of the players.

Griles repeatedly denied Wednesday that more than the two players had ever lived with him. But on Thursday morning -- less than 16 hours after the interview -- NJ Advance Media observed five players exiting his condo between 7:52 and 8:12 a.m. and head in the direction of school.

The coach also insisted numerous times Wednesday that he was not guardian to more than two players. His denials came even though Eastside student profiles listed him as being guardian to five players until late January. At some point in the past week, the profile for the 7-foot-2 Nigerian player was changed to show Maldonado, the Eastside assistant coach, as his guardian. As of Friday, Griles was listed as guardian to four players and Maldonado two.

Griles said Wednesday the idea that he and Maldonado were guardian to six players was "untruthful."

Attempts to reach Maldonado for comment were unsuccessful.

On Thursday, when NJ Advance Media tried to question Griles after a game at Passaic High about the discrepancies in his statement regarding the number of players living with him and how many are under his guardianship, the coach refused all inquiries. He also has not responded to repeated phone messages since the five players were seen leaving his condo Thursday morning.

Paterson public schools spokeswoman Terry Corallo said Thursday the district confirmed Griles has legal guardianship of two student athletes and Maldonado has legal guardianship of two others -- all Eastside boys basketball players. Corallo declined to say how the district confirmed the coaches have guardianship of the players.

"Additionally, for approximately three months, Coach Griles had two additional players living with him temporarily as these students were displaced with nowhere to live," Corallo said in a statement. "They no longer live with him."

Paterson Eastside head coach Juan Griles (center) and his team walk onto the court during a game last week.

When pressed Friday by NJ Advance Media and asked why five players were observed leaving the coach's house on the morning of Thursday's game, Corallo did not respond. She also refused to answer additional questions, including why Griles was listed as the guardian for five players in the Eastside student database a week earlier.

"I know people are jealous of our success here," Griles said Wednesday. "I'm a coach, I'm a mentor to a lot of kids in the city of Paterson. If a kid is struggling at home ... if a kid wants to sleep over for a couple days before we can join him back with his family, I'll do it.

"If you pass by my house, you might see six, seven or four, but they all don't live here."

Jealousy is not the motive for several people within the school district to sound alarms about the living arrangement, sources and teachers within the district said. The sources asked to remain anonymous because they fear retribution from Paterson officials. When teachers heard a player complaining about the lack of food in the house, "We looked into it and we realized, 'How does someone become guardian for six teenage athletes and how are you expected to take care of them financially?'" one of the sources said. "How are you expected to feed all of these boys?"

The district sources said they're concerned most about the well-being of the players, some of whom are thousands of miles away from family. One of the players has "been passed around from person to person" since coming to the United States to pursue an education and basketball opportunities, a source added.

"They're not doing their job," the source said of the Eastside administration. "They don't really care about the kids, unfortunately."

Allison Williams, a child abuse and neglect attorney who has argued cases in 17 New Jersey counties, said the situation at Eastside "definitely sounds fishy."

"The first thing I would want to know is, what legal authority does the coach have to make decisions on behalf of the child," she said. "And he should be able to produce something that says, 'Here's my court order, here's my judgment, here's my power of attorney.' If he can't produce something like that then he's acting presumably out of color of law, in which case ... there may be some serious misdeed going on."

On the athletic level, the NJSIAA -- the state's governing body for high school sports -- only recognizes a change of guardianship if it is court-ordered or made by the state Division of Child Protection and Permanency, according to White, the NJSIAA official.

In addition to the peculiar living arrangement, at least two players staying with Griles have complained about the lack of food in the house, according to a player and sources familiar with the situation at Eastside. One of the boy's complaints led a teacher to reach out for help, and that's when DCP&P was contacted, sources said.

One of the players said Griles grew tired of feeding the boys and told them, "You guys gotta look for other ways of eating. I cannot be feeding y'all all the time." The same player said Griles had promised to take care of them when they arrived. When questioned, he maintained the food was the main issue. The condo itself was comfortable, with players sleeping in bunk beds.

Paterson Eastside head coach Juan Griles with his team after a recent loss to St. Joseph (Mont.)

Corallo said the district received a call Friday from DCP&P asking "to provide some additional information, which we are providing."

On Wednesday, Griles called the situation with DCP&P "all false." He said he had taken in the player at the center of the controversy because the teen had no place to go and someone had asked the coach to help. Griles said over the years he often has taken in students who had problems and needed a place to stay.

"It had nothing to do with basketball," Griles said. "He's a terrible basketball player. It had nothing to do with that. I went and helped somebody so that way he could kind of have a place to stay. That's all that was."

The player is now at school in North Carolina after being urged to leave Eastside by Griles, according to sources. In recent days, the sources said, a second player was being encouraged to leave the school by the coach.

"These kids are so scared," one of the sources said. "I don't think these kids trust anybody in the school anymore."

Foreign players have populated New Jersey high school rosters for decades, according to coaches and athletic officials. Some of the state's best players in recent years, including the likes of Samuel Dalembert (Haiti), Slobodan Savovic (Montenegro) and Luol Deng (Sudan), have been foreign transfers.

But that trend appears to have exploded this season. NJ Advance Media has identified dozens of high-profile foreign players at elite programs such as St. Anthony, the Patrick School, Roselle Catholic, St. Benedict's Prep, St. Mary's of Elizabeth, Pope John and more.

The situation at Eastside, however, is unique -- in terms of sheer volume and because it appears to be one of the first times the trend of foreign players has spread beyond the state's powerful parochial and private school teams.

A historically strong program, Eastside is 14-2 this season and ranked No. 17 in the NJ.com statewide poll. The Ghosts are currently the top-seeded team in the North Jersey, Section 1, Group 4 bracket, with state tournament seeding set for Thursday. The program has been dominant under Griles, who starred in high school at Paterson's Don Bosco Tech before moving on to C.W. Post-Long Island University and scoring 1,323 points over a star-studded four seasons.

After college, Griles played and coached professionally in Puerto Rico, and also coached at the high school level there from 1996 to 1998. He later spent several years as an assistant at William Paterson University, according to a bio from his time with the school. He took over at Eastside in 2010 and led the team to the Group 4 state championship. Eastside also has won three straight Passaic County championships.

Griles works as a special education resource teacher in the School of Government and Public Administration at Eastside, according to a Paterson Times database. However, a secretary in the government and public administration office said last week Griles worked in another part of the school, but declined to provide more information. He earned $57,483 in 2015 as a teacher. It's unclear if he receives a coaching stipend and how much it may be.

All six players who lived with Griles at one time this school year were enrolled in the Government and Public Administration academy, according to their student profiles. Eastside High is divided into three academies with different pathways and focuses of study -- culinary, technology and government and public administration.

Paterson Public Schools spent $15,629 per student in 2015-16, the latest year state data is available, not including debt service, pension and social security payments made by the state or other costs not associated with an individual student. About 80 percent of the school district's overall funding comes from the state, not city taxpayers.

NJ Advance Media staff writers Adam Clark and Sue Livio contributed to this report, as well as NJ Advance Media research editor Vinessa Erminio.

Matthew Stanmyre may be reached at mstanmyre@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattStanmyre. Find NJ.com on Facebook.