BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — LSU Police have arrested six people for scalping tickets on campus before the LSU-Alabama football game.
The Advocate reports (http://bitly.com/SNglWq ) three of those arrested are from Houston, two from Georgia and one from Mississippi.
LSU Police spokesman Capt. Cory Lalonde said officers were actively patrolling campus looking for ticket scalpers.
Lalonde said the arrest number was higher than usual for a game day.
According to Louisiana law, it is illegal to sell tickets for more than the face value and those convicted of violating the law can be fined up to $500 and imprisoned up to 90 days.
Undercover officers approached Rodney Lavon Brown after noticing he was selling tickets on campus, according to an affidavit of probable cause for Brown's arrest.
Brown was selling two tickets for $225 each. Face value for the tickets is $70 each.
Brown had already been banned from campus after attempting to scalp tickets Nov. 6, 2010, which is the last time LSU played Alabama in Tiger Stadium before Saturday's game.
Brown, 46, of Clinton, Miss., was booked on two counts of ticket scalping and one count of remaining after being forbidden.
Plainclothes officers approached Lorenzo Williams, 32, and Martin Jimmerson, 48, both of Houston, around 1:30 p.m. on Fieldhouse Drive.
Williams asked one of the detectives how many tickets he wanted to buy, and the detective responded by asking how many Williams had.
Williams said he had tickets for four seats, two of which were paired together and two were separate, the arrest affidavits say.
Williams told the detectives the tickets were $250 each, or $1,000 for all four.
Detectives took the two men into custody and searched them, finding $145 on Williams and $541 on Jimmerson.
A plainclothes officer approached Korey Fitzgibbons, 36, of Houston, and asked him how much he was selling his tickets for. Fitzgibbons said he had four tickets for $250 each.
An officer approached Jacob Moore, 26, of Dacula, Ga., about 6:30 p.m. and asked for his ticket price. Moore said he was selling tickets for $175.
Around the same time, another officer approached Dexter Shorter, 28, of Duluth, Ga., about tickets for sale. Shorter said he was selling his tickets for $150 each.
LSU Police took Shorter into custody and found six LSU-Alabama tickets and $1,733 in his possession.
Williams, Jimmerson, Fitzgibbons, Moore and Shorter were all booked on counts of ticket scalping.
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Information from: The Advocate, http://theadvocate.com
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.