Sarah Phillips starts out as a regular poster on the gambling message board Covers. The administrator likes what he sees and asks her to write a weekly column for the board. The administrator never met her and only talked to her on the phone. At the same time she meets a guy on the internet and they form a partnership to create a sports comedy website. She tells him her aspirations for the website making thousands through ad dollars. He gives her $2000 initially to pay formaintenance for the website. He never saw anyimprovements. She kept asking him for money, and he kept giving it to her in good faith. He eventuallyrealized what was going on and cut off the funds. Phillips threatens to report him to the authorities if he doesn't keep giving her the money he "owes" her. He still refuses and she cuts off all contact with him by deleting the gmail account they used to communicate.<div>
</div><div>While writing the column for Covers, the editor of ESPN's Page 2 gets wind of her, and hires Phillips to be a freelance columnist for the site. While working for ESPN, Phillips comes across a 19 year old kid's NBA meme page on Facebook. She give him the same line about creating a sports comedy website. This time she tells the kid that she will hire him to be the site's meme editor and earn 10% of the website's revenue. The kid gives her access to his Facebook page. One day he logs on only to find that she has deleted him as an administrator. According to the article, he is in the process of filing a lawsuit to regain rights to the Facebook page.</div><div>
</div><div>Deadspin writes the articles this morning and ESPN fires Phillips at 5pm CST this afternoon, per ESPN spokesman.</div>