Sarah Phillips fired from ESPN after fraud and extortion allegations

There is one question on the minds of sports media and fans alike: Who is Sarah Phillips?

The ESPN contributor was fired from her job mere hours after Deadspin broke a story asking if Sarah Phillips really was who she said she was. 

Phillips, who is a self-proclaimed sports addict, spent time at the gambling site Covers.com, before being picked up by ESPN to write for Playbook in August of 2011.

On her first blog for ESPN, Phillips wrote, "In a nutshell, I'm obsessed with sports from a statistical and point-spread perspective — for entertainment purposes, of course."

Phillips quickly rose to internet stardom, gaining fans for her accurate picks, her charisma as a writer, and ability to be the girl in the boy's club, the Huffington Post reported. 

However, questions have now arisen asking if Phillips really is the 22-year-old Oregon State, West Coast sports-addict she says she is. 

Phillips was never interviewed in person by either Covers.com, or ESPN. No one in either company had ever even seen, or met, her in person. 

Beyond being accused of using an alias, Phillips also stands accused of conning young writers out of their content ownership rights. 

The Deadspin piece goes into great detail on how Phillips and her alleged partner in crime, Nilesh 'Nick' Prasad, scammed sports writers into handing over their pages in exchange for a quick buck. 

One such deception happened to a 19-year-old who Deadspin only named as "Ben." Ben owned and operated a popular basketball meme site, NBA Memes. 

According to Deadspin, Ben was deceived into giving up administrative rights to his popular page by Phillips and Prasad. Within days of first emailing the two, Ben was cut out of any deal and Phillips and Prasad used his page to direct users and fans to follow their new page "Sports Comedy Network."

Ben wasn't the only one. The story notes several others also conned out of their Twitter handles and Facebook pages. 

In the days following the Deadspin piece, it seems both ESPN and Phillips are trying to wash their hands of the situation. ESPN, by firing Philips less than two hours after the story broke, Phillips by posting several Tweets in an attempt to explain herself. Phillips said: 

In subsequent Tweets she admits to making poor choices and to trusting the wrong people. 

At least there is one happy ending to the tale of Sarah Phillips. In a Tweet she says, "I recovered the Facebook page for "Ben." Truthfully, he and I didn't communicate much. I learned much of that story today, with you."

And if she's looking for another job, Keeping it Heel is ready to forgive her.