Priscilla Slade and the TSU Three

During the tape-recorded conversation between Johnson and Jordan, Johnson tells the student, "I can help you at Texas Tech. And, umm, yeah man, if you quiet down on campus, all this shit will blow away. Keep your head in the game, boy."

Jordan says Johnson wanted Jordan to make peace between the university and the TSU Three.

Johnson "offered me a study-abroad trip to Rome funded by Dr. Slade's office, or he said he knew board members at Texas Tech and that they were trying to recruit minorities and he could help me out," says Jordan. "He even told me he'd talked to top Republicans in the state and they wanted me to leave Dr. Slade and everyone at TSU alone. And he made reference to Bush 41 as one of them. I thought it was crazy and would never have accepted."

Still, Jordan says he believes Johnson is one of the good guys.

"He is very genuine and I believe that he wants to do the right thing," says Jordan. "But I think he made a lot of bad decisions when it came to this whole ordeal."

Johnson says he is limited as to what he can say due to the TSU Three's lawsuit.

"I believed that the young men needed to be heard," he says, "and I took the opportunity to talk to them. Now, when they tape-recorded me, I really took issue. At that point, I really didn't know if I could trust them. I was trying to be forthright and honest with them, but it didn't stop me from caring about the young men."

The day after Jordan made the tape of Johnson, Brown says he took a copy of it to the FBI. He says he told agents about his suspicions, and the next thing Brown knew, he was acting as an informant. FBI spokeswoman Patricia Villafranca says she can neither confirm nor deny Brown's claim.

"The agent told me not to tell anyone I was working with them, not my friends, not my mama, nobody," says Brown. "So, the first thing I did was run and go tell Justin. And within 48 hours, the agent called me back and asked if I could get another meeting with Johnson."

Brown says he met Johnson at a Pappadeaux's restaurant, armed with an FBI recording device made to look like a pager.

"Before walking in the restaurant," says Brown, "my hands were sweating like a son of a bitch. But I chilled out and made it through it. Johnson explained the bogus bond again and admitted that in fact Jackson had covered it up. He also explained how the university was keeping track of the three of us and everything we were doing on campus, and that if we sent an apology letter to the governor and the regents that he could get us out of the trouble that they had created against us. So, I asked Johnson if he could set up a meeting with Slade to apologize. Why? Because the FBI surely would like to be there for that meeting."

Brown says he got his meeting with Slade and several of the regents, and this time the feds outfitted him with not only a recording device but also a tiny video camera.

"Slade admitted the bond had been a problem," says Brown, "and then she starts putting on this crying act, saying, 'I don't understand why you are all bringing up all these skeletons about the campus' and 'Why are you all going to ruin your careers bringing up bad stuff that's happened at the university,' implying we are ruining our careers by bringing up the truth."

Scott Durfee, general counsel at the Harris County District Attorney's Office, confirmed the existence of recordings that Brown says he made while working for the FBI. However, Durfee said he cannot release them until at least after the conclusion of Slade's retrial next year.

Over the next few months, Brown says, he recorded additional conversations with TSU officials, but his investigation began to stall. Then one day, someone within the administration leaked state procurement card records and statements to the TSU Three.

"They showed that Slade and other people at the school had bought all this shit that just didn't look right and these people at the university were making questionable charges with state money," says Brown. "And I'm thinking, 'What are we going to do with all of this?'"

Some of those questionable charges, says Brown, included purchases at The Root of You hair salon, Toys "R" Us, the Home Shopping Network, 1-800-FLOWERS, Palais Royal department store, Garden Ridge home-decor store and the Four Seasons Hotel in Houston.