>> beautiful kids, andrew. good, good. i'm going to blame you, andrew, if they don't do it. >> can you imagine the repercussions on myself, my family, if it was me, andrew hitt, who prevented donald trump from winning wisconsin. >> you're saying you were

scared? >> it was not a safe time. if my lawyer is right, and the whole reason trump loses wisconsin is because of me, i would be scared to death. for more than five years, american businessman eman shargi was a prisoner of the republic of iran. in september, shargi and four other americans were freed in a deal that has drawn fierce criticism because of iran's strident support of hamas. tonight, emad shargi tells us his story. >> i learned a lot about myself, aout humanity, about what is important in life. being thrown in a cell, it's the closest you come to death. showtime, baby. >> rich paul's rise to superstar sports agent -- >> it's draft day, anything can happen. >> -- is one of the most interesting journeys we have ever followed. from young hustler shooting dice

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presidential election in 2020, democratic and republican electors representing the candidate who won the popular vote in their states, gathered across the country to formally cast electoral votes for president. but in seven states that joe biden won, republican electors got together anyway and cast phony votes for donald trump. they've become known as fake electors. and according to federal prosecutors, they were part of a plan to overturn the election, orchestrated by pro-trump attorneys with trump support. state criminal charges have been filed against fake electors in arizona, georgia, michigan, and nevada. wisconsin's fake electors haven't been charged. and as we first reported in february, one of them, andrew hitt, an attorney and former chairman of the state republican party, agreed to sit down with us to explain how he says he and wisconsin's other gop electors were tricked by the trump campaign. >> you were head of the republican party in wisconsin. were you a big trump supporter?

>> i worked tirelessly for him. i -- day and night. >> let's put it together for the president of the united states one more time. >> often times, phone calls would start by 6:00 in the morning and wouldn't end until 10:30 at night. i did everything i possibly could. >> the wisconsin republican party chairman, andrew hitt -- >> andrew hitt was often singled out by president trump at rallies in wisconsin. >> andrew hitt, andrew hitt. how are we doing, andrew? going to win this stuff. got to win it. >> but trump didn't win wisconsin. he lost to joe biden by some 27,000 votes. the trump campaign appealed, challenging absentee ballots on technical grounds in two democratic counties. >> if you count the lawful votes, trump won wisconsin by a good margin. >> that was false. what he said was false. >> the trump campaign wanted the votes, and dane county and milwaukee county tossed. do you support that idea?

>> it wasn't something that i was comfortable with. >> dane county and milwaukee county in wisconsin are the most liberal counties, the majority of the black population in wisconsin, live in those two counties. >> correct, correct. >> personally you did not believe all those absentee ballots should have been thrown out? >> well, i voted that way. you know, i voted that way. >> you didn't think your own vote should be thrown out? >> no. >> on november 30th, wisconsin's democratic governor, tony evers certified joe biden's victory. authorizing the state's democratic electors to gather at the state capitol on december 14th to cast their electoral votes for joe biden. but days earlier, andrew hitt says he received a call from the republican national committee. >> what was the reach out to you? >> can we get a list of the wisconsin republican electors? >> that made you suspicious? >> it did. i was already concerned that they were going to try to say that the democratic electors were not proper in wisconsin because of fraud.

>> you didn't believe there was any -- >> no, i was very involved, obviously, in the election. >> hitt was one of ten republicans nominated to be an elector if trump won in wisconsin. on december 4th, he says he was advised by the state gop's outside legal counsel to gather the other republican electors on december 14th at the capitol and as a contingency, sign a document claiming trump won the state, in case a court overturned the election in wisconsin. >> in case the legal argument that the trump team is making actually win in court? >> right. and i remember asking, how can this be that a court overturns the election and just because we don't meet and fill out this paperwork on the 14th, that trump would forfeit wisconsin? and the legal analysis back was, the statute's very clear. the electors have to meet at noon at the capital in wisconsin on december 14th. >> that morning, the state

supreme court, in a 4-3 ruling, rejected the trump campaign's attempt to throw out more than 200,000 votes. but andrew hitt says he and the other republican electors met anyway to cast fake votes because he'd been told the trump campaign would appeal to the u.s. supreme court. kenneth chesebro, a pro-trump attorney, who was an alleged architect of the fake electors plan, showed up to watch. >> we got specific advice from our lawyers that these documents were meaningless unless a court said they had meaning. >> you were deciding to sign this document as an elector and getting the other electors to sign this document based on a court challenge that you yourself don't believe has legitimacy? >> i wouldn't say it doesn't have legitimacy. that's different than not personally agreeing with it. >> you personally don't believe that legitimate votes by wisconsin residents should be tossed out, and yet you were signing a document in support of a lawsuit, which is alleging just that.

>> and if i didn't do that and the court did throw out those votes, it would have been solely my fault that trump wouldn't have won wisconsin. >> beautiful kids, andrew. good, good. i'm going to blame you, andrew, if they don't do it. >> can you imagine the repercussions on myself, my family, if it was me, andrew hitt, who prevented donald trump from winning wisconsin? >> you're saying you were scared? >> absolutely. >> scared of trump supporters in your state. >> it was not a safe time. if my lawyer is right and the whole reason trump loses wisconsin is because of me, i would be scared to death. >> signing legal documents of such consequence that you don't believe in and you don't believe the underlying reason for the documents, it's -- i mean, it's not exactly a profile in courage.

>> no. >> how do you feel about that now? >> i mean, terrible. if i knew what i knew now, i wouldn't have done it. it was kept from us that there was this alternate scheme, alternate motive. >> that alleged alternate scheme is a prominent part of special counsel jack smith's indictment of the former president. >> charging donald j. trump with conspiring to defraud the united states. >> according to smith, a legal strategy in wisconsin evolved into a corrupt plan, involving six other states as well. >> donald j. trump of the state of florida, number of votes, 11. >> arizona, georgia, nevada, new mexico, pennsylvania, and michigan. >> he said we can't enter. >> where some of the fake electors couldn't convince police to let them into the capitol. >> we're electors, sir. >> we're electors. >> the electors are already here. they've been checked in.

>> jack smith cites this december 6th memo written by ken chesebro, detailing ways the trump campaign can prevent biden from amassing 270 electoral votes on january 6th. smith alleges the multi-state scheme was designed to create a a fake controversy, a position the vice president to supplant legitimate electors with trump's fake electors and certify him as president. by january 4th, according to internal emails, some in the trump campaign were panicking. they believed the fake electors' documents from michigan and wisconsin hadn't arrived in vice president mike pence's senate office. >> your colleague texted you, freaking trump, idiots want someone to fly original elector papers to the senate president. you wrote, this is just nuts. what was nuts about it? >> i mean, we have the certification coming on the 6th. how do you not have the paperwork? >> i mean, you've said you only went along with this plan to

preserve trump's candidacy in the event of a court ruling. january 4th, just two days before january 6th, did you really think that was still possible? >> well, remember, though, wisconsin supreme court had been appealed. and so, january 4th, it seemed like, yeah, it's possible that a much more conservative united states supreme court could overturn a 4-3 decision. >> to get the paperwork to washington, they picked alesha guenther, then a 23-year-old law school student working part time for wisconsin's republican party. >> i was on break from law school and wanted to make some extra money to pay for books and worked for the party for my month off of school. so, on january 4th, i got a call from the executive director of the republican party of wisconsin since i was helping out at the time. >> what did you think when you got the text? >> at first i didn't know what it was. and he followed up and asked that the trump campaign wanted these papers flown out to d.c. because they had gotten lost in the mail. >> she picked up the papers here

at the state headquarters and on january 5th, flew to washington. she showed us her email chain with ken chesebro and the trump campaign's senior adviser, mike roman. >> explaining i should only give the documents to ken chesebro. and they asked me to meet up with him outside the trump hotel. >> it sounds very secretive. >> yeah, i thought that that email was pretty odd and dramatic. >> and you knew what was happening on january 6th in terms of the certification of the vote? >> i don't know if i was very tuned into that. truly because i thought that a court of law would have needed to overturn the election for those documents to be used. >> did you know what chesebro looked like? >> he had actually sent me a selfie -- >> he sent you a selfie -- >> yeah. >> -- so you would know it was him. >> yeah. >> can i see? >> yeah. >> she still has the photo saved on her phone. that's -- that's ken chesebro. >> mm-hmm. >> what did he say to you? >> he kind of took a dramatic step back and looked at me and said, you might have just made history.

>> ken chesebro told investigators he delivered the wisconsin documents to capitol hill. the next day, on january 6, he can be seen in videos outside the capitol near conspiracy theorist alex jones. >> and i want to look even more deeply at the fake elector scheme. >> according to the january 6 select committee, an aid to wisconsin senator, ron johnson, tried to arrange to get the fake elector slate to vice president pence. >> i hope mike is going to do the right thing. i hope so. i hope so. because if mike pence does the right thing, we win the election. >> but pence's aide refused, texting, do not give that to him, according to the committee. when the senate chamber had to be evacuated, the real electoral votes in these boxes were taken to safety. when congress resumed, they were returned into the house chamber. >> pursuant to senate concurrent -- >> vice president pence

announced the election results and closed the session at 3:44 a.m. january 7th. the supreme court ultimately declined to hear the trump campaign's lawsuit in wisconsin. >> what do you think about donald trump continuing to claim that the 2020 election was stolen? >> i mean, it wasn't stolen. it wasn't stolen in wisconsin. >> this past december, andrew hitt and wisconsin's other republican electors, settled a civil lawsuit against them by some of the state's democratic electors. they admitted they signed a document that was used as part of an attempt to improperly overturn the 2020 presidential election results. hitt resigned as chairman of the wisconsin republican party in august 2021. he's cooperated with the january 6 committee -- >> using our electors in ways that we weren't told about. and we wouldn't have supported. >>-- and he says he's also cooperated with federal prosecutors.

he maintains he and the other fake electors in wisconsin were tricked. >> whenever anybody sees our text messages, our emails, our documents, they understand, they know. their conclusion is, we were tricked. the january 6 committee saw it. jack smith specifically in his indictment refers to some of the electors were tricked. that was us. >> the former president is known to watch "60 minutes." if he's watching, what would you want to say to him? >> i would say that this country needs to move forward, that we need a leader who is -- tackles serious problems and serious issues that this country faces. and we need faith in our institutions again. and the next president of the united states needs to do that. >> in your opinion, that's not him? >> it is not him. correct.

real electors in michigan on their fake counterparts. >> they were going to try to sneak in the night before. >> the night before and sleep in the capitol. >> at 60minutesovertime.com. ♪ ”fracture (instrumental) by apashe & flux pavilion ♪ ♪ [bird caws] commuter: “whoa” ♪ siri: “continue straight." [bird caws] [commuter groans] siri: “you're still on the fastest route.” [commuter groans] [bird caws] commuter: “aghhh” [music stops] [debris crashing] [debris crashing] [phone thuds] ♪ [bird caws] ♪ “oh, come on!” with schwab investing themes™, it's easy to invest in ideas you believe in. spot a trend in electric vehicles? have a passion for online gaming? or want to explore the space economy?

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now margaret brennan on assignment for "60 minutes." >> for more than five years, american businessman emad shargi, was a prisoner of the islamic republic of iran. he spent much of that time in a notorious prison run by iran's revolutionary guard. in september, shargi and four other americans were freed in a complicated deal involving $6 billion in restricted iranian

oil revenue. as we first reported last fall, the deal drew criticism for granting financial relief to a regime that the u.s. government considers the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism. it drew even more scrutiny after hamas, which is financially supported by iran, attacked israel on october 7th. it is a tense moment in the region, and the death of iran's president has added uncertainly about its political leadership. with more than 120 hostages still unaccounted for in gaza, including five u.s. citizens and dozens of other americans the u.s. says are held without cause around the world, shargi's story is a stark illustration of the difficulties involved in bringing americans home. >> the story should have never happened. but i didn't waste five and a half years, margaret. i learned a lot about myself,

about humanity, about what is important in life. being thrown in a cell, it's the closest you come to death. >> eman shargi is a dual citizen of the u.s. and iran. he left iran at age 13, before the 1979 islamic revolution. in the u.s., he went to college, met his wife, bahareh, and started a business representing u.s. chemical companies in the middle east, and later worked for a private equity firm in abu dhabi. by 2016, with their daughters off to college, emad and bahareh, who is also iranian american, decided to travel to iran and rediscover their roots. iran had just agreed to a landmark deal to limit its nuclear development in exchange for sanctions relief, which made shargi think the country was full of opportunity. his father thought otherwise. >> he said to me, he said, emad, you don't know this country.

people like you, with dual nationalities, they pick these people up once in a while for whatever use they have for them. and i said, dad, give me a break. you know, i have never been in the u.s. government, nothing. and i guess if anybody asks me in one sentence, what have you learned from this experience, i would say, listen to your dad. >> the couple, both in their 50s, began spending time in iran. shargi found work consulting for an amsterdam-based company investing in iranian businesses. >> was there anything that suggested to you that you were a target, that there was going to be a problem? >> you know, i thought i have a better chance of getting hit crossing the road by a motorbike when i was there. i did not see this coming. >> just past midnight on april 23, 2018, about 15 armed agents showed up at the family house in

tehran. >> gentleman walked in. he said, this is an arrest warrant for you and for your wife. >> on what grounds? >> he wouldn't tell me at the time. around 2:30 in the morning, they said, okay, get ready, we are taking you. and my wife said, no, you can't take him. and they told her to sit down and mind her business, that they'll get to her later. >> what did that mean? >> i didn't know at the time. so, when they took me out of that house, i did not know what was going to happen to my wife. >> that's terrifying. >> yep. it's not a position you want to be in. >> he was taken to a place in tehran iranians have long feared, evin prison, to a special ward known as 2a, run by the intelligence division of the islamic revolutionary guard corp. >> they took me to a room. they told me to strip naked. they gave me some blue garbs. they told me, this is the end of the line for you, and most likely you'll never see the

outside world. from now on, nobody will address you by your name. you are a code now. 97-0-10 was my code. >> that's dehumanizing. >> they were experts at that. and then hell starts. >> torture? >> threats of torture and psychological torture. they take you to a very small room, and then they throw a giant of a human being in there, who proceeds to hit you, to push you around, to threaten to kill you. and then the good cop comes in and he says, look, i can put a stop to this. you just need to confess. >> confess to what? >> they said, you have to confess that you are a spy. which is ludicrous. >> shargi says his interrogators threatened him with electrical shocks, water boarding, and hanging, but never followed through. >> so, i realized, they don't want to damage their product at that point.

>> product? >> correct. >> why do you choose that word? >> because that's what i was. >> you believe you were taken simply because you were american to extract a price? >> correct. >> he told us, some interrogations went on for nine hours a day. >> what did you tell them during all those hours of questioning? >> i mean, the most mundane things. the first day, they kept asking me, why did you go to the white house church? and i'm thinking to myself going, i know the white house doesn't have a church. and then it clicked. they had hacked my facebook. they had seen the pictures of us attending my daughter's events at school at the national cathedral. they had no idea that the national cathedral had nothing to do with the white house. >> this is an intelligence service. >> you would be surprised. they had my telephone, so they had gone through the list of

every person i'd ever met during the last 30 years of my business career. who are these? who are those? these questions would go on day after day after day. >> in december 2018, after eight months of interrogation, emad shargi was suddenly released on bail. his wife, bahareh, who had never been arrested, was able to leave the country. emad expected to join her soon. he says he received a letter of exoneration, but he wasn't allowed to leave iran. >> now my story takes a bizarre turn. my file had been sent to the revolutionary court. it's where a gentleman by the name of judge salvati sits. also known as the hanging judge. >> in november 2020, the hanging judge sentenced shargi to ten years in prison under a broadly worded statute, which prohibits cooperating by any means with

foreign states against iran. before shargi had to report back to prison, a plan came up with a plan. >> to escape? >> to escape. i said, let's go. >> smugglers helped him make his way to iran's mountainous border with kurdistan. >> but about 30 miles from freedom -- >> i look up and there's about 15 guys with ak-47 pointing at the car. they threw me on the ground. the team leader came. he opened the scarf they put around my eyes and he looked away and shook his head to his team members. >> they were looking for somebody else. >> they were looking for somebody. now we have round two of incarceration. >> this iranian propaganda photo taken in january 2021 shows him bearded and shackled, being escorted back to ward 2a, where he says he underwent another eight months of interrogation. >> the second eight months, i was interrogated close to 400 hours. >> how do you stay sane? >> all those times, there wa

never a doubt in my mind that my government would get me out. that was my hope. >> back in washington, bahareh and her daughters campaigned for emad's release and sought help from the state department, which reviewed shargi's case and determined he was wrongfully detained. the biden administration had been trying to broker both the release of american detainees and the renewal of the iran nuclear deal, which the trump administration had pulled out of. but the talks stalled. in the fall of 2022, widespread protests broke out, following the death of a young woman in the custody of iran's morality police. in evin prison, the inmates rioted and set fires. the guards responded with tear gas and bullets. >> it was happening a couple of yards from where i was sitting in my room. now, if i left, i could be shot. if i stayed, i could suffocate. >> with no good option, he

stayed in his cell. shargi says he was rescued, ironically, by his tormenters, a team of revolutionary guards. >> they were pale white when they saw me. they were like, emad, let's get the hell out of here. >> because you're worth more alive than dead. >> correct. >> shortly after the fire, emad's sister sought a meeting with iran's top diplomat at the united nations. she wanted to learn what was holing up a prisoner deal. >> he acknowledged to you there were people inside his government that didn't want the deal to happen. >> yeah, he acknowledged that, and just as there are people in our government who didn't want this to happen. we're dealing with innocent human lives. we want to rectify the situation. but for other people, it's politics and it's power. and they get in the way. >> arranging a meeting with president biden proved more difficult for neda. determined to help her brother,

she went to this crowded white house reception for the persian new year and managed to buttonhole the president after he spoke. >> i told him, there are american citizens who are innocent and need to come home as soon as possible because time is not on our side. >> after roughly two years of start and stop negotiations, the u.s. and iran reached a complex agreement. $6 billion that iran had earned from selling its oil had been tied up in a foreign account for years due to u.s. sanctions. according to u.s. officials, iran can use the money to buy humanitarian goods like food and medicine once the u.s. approves the transactions. the money goes to the suppliers, not the government of iran. on september 18th, president biden granted clemency to five iranians accused of non-violent crimes. five americans, including emad shargi, were released and flown to qatar. from there, they flew to a

military base in virginia, where their families were waiting. >> we're home. >> i hadn't seen my daughters for five and half, six years. i had missed all their graduations, birthdays, anniversaries with my wife. it's like being born again. we had thought we were going to be freed so many times, and this was it. >> since his release, emad's making up for lost time with his family. he's also had time to reflect. >> you think to yourself, what was this all about? why did they do this to me and to my family? >> five years. >> the short answer is, hostage taking as state craft. > if you were an american, an iranian american -- >> no, iranian american, italian american, american, do not go to iran. >> less than three weeks after shargi's release, hamas, which

is financially backed by iran, attacked israel. as israel counterattacked in gaza, some u.s. lawmakers have called for blocking iran's access to the 6 billion. the white house insists no money has been released so far. and sources told us the arrangement has not changed. >> when you watch the news right now and you see what has happened in israel, not just about the people killed, but the hostages that have been taken, what is that like for you? >> i cannot imagine what it must feel like to have your daughter, your son, your wife, your father, being taken hostage. and i cannot believe what their families are going through. i just wish them a safe return home. some things should stand the test of time.

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this week, the nba finals tip off. and perhaps no one will be watching more closely than rich paul, one of the premier agents in professional sports. he counts lebron james as a close friend and client. the agency he founded, clutch sports group, make deals worth almost $900 million this past summer for his nba clients alone. as we first reported in october, paul honed his deal-making instincts as a kid navigating what he called the hostile streets of his cleveland neighborhood. today, at 43, he's rewriting the playbook for representing pro athletes. rich paul told us he was lucky. and when you hear his story, we think you'll understand why. >> so, you used to come to games when you were younger?

>> i went one time when i had to sit all the way up at the top, you really couldn't see the person. >> and now? >> now it's -- now -- >> you're sitting on the floor. >> we joined rich paul courtside at a cleveland cavaliers game last season. he seemed to know everyone. >> what up, doc. that's good. >> and it seemed everyone wanted to know him. >> thank you so much. hey, bro. >> thank you, brother. i appreciate it. >> in 2022, paul got cleveland star darius garland a $200 million deal, the richest in franchise history. garland is one of more than 500 athletes on paul's roster. >> who are some of the big names that we would all recognize? >> which sport do you want? we just had jalen hurts and devonta smith playing the super bowl for the philadelphia eagles. and you've got the anthony davis' and draymond greens and obviously lebron. >> do you know the total value of the contracts you negotiated?

>> i would say it's close to 3 billion, i think. >> it's more than 4 billion, but it's hard to keep track when yo're always on the go. >> showtime, baby. >> before the nba draft in new york city, we watched him work the phones. >> it's draft day, anything could happen. >> work the room. >> hey coach, how you doing? >> and work the angles to move clients like duke center, dereck lively ii, up the draft board. >> you ready? >> in college, lively was known for his defense. but paul had him work on his three-point shot. and before the draft invited teams to see. lively shot up to the 12th pick, about ten spots higher than first projected. it might not look like it, but rich paul is a towering figure in the nba. >> i've always been the smallest guy in the room, willing to take the biggest swing. >> some of his biggest swings

have been for his biggest client, lebron james. paul negotiated his jumps from miami to cleveland to l.a., deals that netted james $400 million and set him up to win two of his four championships. he told us he works to give players leverage. >> some people say that you're destroying the player loyalty to the teams and the fans. >> player loyalty to what? if i can be traded in the middle of the night to another team, what i should be is educating myself to where if this isn't going the way i thought it was supposed to go, i can switch up. right? >> you have options. >> i have options. what's the sense in having money with no options? >> that's apparently how superstar anthony davis felt in 2018. the new orleans center had a $127 million contract but was tired of losing.

so, he fired his agent and hired rich paul. paul flouted nba rules by publicly demanding a trade, earning the wrath of fans and a $50,000 fine for davis. the drama landed paul on the cover of "sports illustrated," which called him the most polarizing figure in the nba. >> when it was someone who didn't look like me, it was genius. it was why you get a power agent. but when it's me, i'm destroying the league? i mean, those things are absurd. >> he got davis what he wanted, a championship ring and a deal now worth $270 million. >> there's a saying that goes, if you don't got no haters, you ain't popping. >> you must be popping. >> i'm popping a little bit. >> he was popping a lot at his annual all-star game party, this

one held in salt lake city. >> what's up, doc? >> we dropped in and saw giants of the court mingling with rappers, team owners, and titans of industry over cocktails. rich paul had a full plate of business options, one from the president of gatorade. >> how you doing? i want to be your first call. >> done. >> while we were chatting with him -- golden state warrior draymond green cut in. the four-time nba champion cycled through two other agents before signing up with rich paul, who landed him a $100 million contract over the summer. >> so, then you end up a young black man who's made more money than you can ever imagine but you don't know how to live with it. you don't know what to do with i? and what does he do? most agents treat athletes as if the athlete works for them. but there's a multibillion dollar business going on around most athletes that they don't understand. but they don't have a rich paul to teach them. and that's what's special about

it. >> paul's improbable journey, the subject of his memoir out last fall, started on the east side of cleveland in the early '80s, just as crack cocaine hit the streets. when he was about 4, he learned his mother, minerva, was hooked on crack. his father, big rich, recognized his son's intelligence and kept him close, though they lived apart. he owned the neighborhood convenience store. >> your dad store was just right in here. >> yeah. and this was my world. >> this now empty corner was a hot bed of activity, legal and illegal. >> it was a shootout right here on this corner. >> big rich taught his son to always think two steps ahead. he scraped together the money to send him to a catholic high school away from the neighborhood. still, there was no avoiding the streets. >> you don't know what you're in. >> that's your norm? >> that's my norm.

sardines out the can, that was today's version of tuna tartar on the waldorf rooftop. this was my education though. this was my hard work. my harvard, my michigan, my morehouse. and the same things i learned on this corner i take into the board room. the one thing this teaches you that i don't think you can learn from those institutions is people, characters. and on these streets, it's no better way to learn character because they're coming with everything. >> his dad taught him another skill, a way to make money if all else fails, with a pair of dice. paul and his best friend, edward givens, were regulars at an open air casino in the park. >> 50 people crowded around this little area. and the energy was high. it was an arena. >> and rich paul was a natural. >> and how much would you earn? >> i mean, a slow day was $1,000. >> and not slow day?

>> aah, you know, 4 or 5. >> 4 or $5,000? >> easy. >> yeah. >> when you were 14, 15, 16. >> oh, yeah. >> what did you learn from this experience? >> you gain a resilience here. we won majority of the time. but you also had to learn how to lose. >> he suffered his biggest loss when he was 19. his father died from cancer, and paul went all in on the streets, selling marijuana and crack cocaine. >> this is the very drug that your mother was hooked on. >> the absence of my dad allowed me to take that step because i would have never done that, had he been around. i had too much respect for him. and it's not something that i would sit here and glorify. >> it almost sounds like you were a full-time hustler. >> oh, yeah. but jeff bezos is a hustler.

you think he's not? phil knight was the ultimate hustler. the difference is, they could go with their plan and their business idea and get someone to believe in them. it didn't matter what idea i had. there's no pathway to get there. >> he found one through a stroke of luck at the akron canton arport in 2001, paul was wearing a throwback jersey like this one, that caught the eye of another traveller, high school hoops sensation, lebron james. >> what did you see in him? >> it began with him wearing a throwback jersey that i loved. but as we got to talking about sports, we started evolving and talking more and more about life, about our upbringing, about our moms and our communities and stuff of that nature. and it just kind of struck. it just struck a chord. >> when james entered the nba, he hired rich paul as a

right-hand man. paul went on to work for lebron's agent and watched, listened, and learned. >> i understand that you would go into meetings with the likes of warren buffett. >> being in those rooms, it's much better to listen than to talk. if you listen, you might actually learn something. and you start to, kind of, you know, work your way on your own. >> after just four years, he struck out on his own and launched clutch sports group in 2012. lebron james went with him. >> when you first started this, you were underestimated. >> not only was i underestimated. i was also not wanted. i didn't look like the success in our industry, especially from a place of decision making. and i wanted to disrupt the industry. i wanted to be impactful. but i wanted to come from a place of purpose. >> in 2013, with his first

negotiation as agent for phoenix suns guard eric bledsoe, he proved the nay sayers wrong. he said the suns had offered $28 million. >> and then $48 million. >> and you turned it down. >> yeah. >> what was on the line? >> my career. everyone was calling saying, he's crazy, he doesn't know what he's doing, he's inexperienced. >> sounds like you are really comfortable rolling the dice. >> i was born a dice roller. >> his gamble paid off. after hanging tough for a year, clutch got bledsoe a $70 million deal, $42 million more than the suns' first offer. today, clutch has more than 100 employees, with offices in l.a., new york, atlanta, and nashville. >> they both in the same draft class. >> paul teamed up with powerhouse agency, uta, to expand clutch's reach.

>> i had to build a multi-hundred million dollar company to get people to believe in me. and there's still doubt. >> critics say he's only successful because of his relationship with you. >> i mean, it's disappointing to hear that. >> but you gave him an opportunity. >> yeah, and i don't give people opportunities much. and he took way beyond what he even imagined. >> rich paul now has a new balance signature shoe, a first for an agent. his partner is more famous than he is. he's been in a relationship with adele for three years. >> adele. >> she gave him a shoutout at the grammys. >> oh, rich said, don't cry if you win. he said, if you win tonight, don't cry. and here i am crying. >> a couple of weeks later at his all-star game party, paul's friends recognized his achievements. with a $140,000 watch. >> wow! wow!

wow! >> do you have to pinch yourself sometimes? >> all the time. >> that's beautiful. >> i had it worse than a lot of people, but i evolved. i'm mature. i transitioned. >> how does that feel? >> feels great. it feels earned. it wasn't given for sure. it was earned. which is good. i like that. cbs sports hq is presented by progressive insurance. today at the rbc canadian open, scotland's robert macintyre shot 68 to win his first peej title with his father serving as his caddie. in the wnba, the connecticut sun defeated atlanta to remain the only undefeated team in the league. for 24/7 news and highlights, visit cbssportshq.com. this is jim nance reporting from hamilton, ontario, canada. [ cellphone ringing ] phone call from the boss? sorry.

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