Ezekiel Kemboi, 4 Other Kenyan Male Athletes Who Ran on the Wrong Side of the Law

It is no doubt that Kenya has produced some of the finest elite athletes not just on the continent but globally.

Most, if not all, of them, are members of the police service which means they are licensed gun holders, a bad combination when you add money and fame into the mix.

Conseslus Kipruto: Child support

In 2017, then 45-year-old Horta Jesang sued 22-year-old Olympic and World 3000 metres steeplechase champion Conseslus Kipruto for neglecting his parenting responsibilities.

Kipruto and Jesang are said to have conceived a baby boy who was born in 2016, the reason for the latter demanding KSh 50,000 monthly child support from the elite athlete.

Kipruto is an Olympic men’s 3,000 steeplechase gold winner, a World Champion in the London Marathon and has several other medals from other international races.

Asbel Kiprop: Assault

In January 2014, world 1500-meter champion Asbel Kiprop was charged in a court in Iten for assaulting a night guard.

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Football

According to reports, the 2008 Olympic and 2011 world champion forcibly entered a bar while intoxicated and, together with other four friends, dragged the guard to the door before hitting him with a gun butt.

Their actions were believed to be as a result of the fact that the night guard, James Mukuria, informed Kiprop that the bar’s main door was locked because it was past the stipulated drinking hours.

Ezekiel Kemboi: Assault

According to Anne Njeri Otieno, the athlete attacked her when she turned down his sexual advances.

Kemboi denied the allegations, claiming that she was injured in a skirmish after colluding with thugs to steal from him.

A magistrate at the Eldoret law courts granted Kemboi bail of $595 (KSh 66,000) to allow him to travel to London for the Olympics.

Hillary Kiprotich: Impersonation

Hillary Kiprotich was charged with impersonating a female nurse at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital by the name of Shieys Chepkosgei.

The athlete demanded to be treated in a special way while in custody with claims that he was transgender.

“It is my right to associate myself with a gender of my choice and nobody should force me to confess to belonging to the gender that I am not comfortable with,” the athlete said in a petition.

Stephen Cheruiyot Chereno: Land case

Three years ago, athlete Stephen Cheruiyot Chereno (now called Shaheen Saif Saeed) took his former pacesetter Kenneth Kiptum Kandie to court for allegedly acquiring his prime piece of land in Moiben, Uasin-Gishu County.

Kiptum maintained that Cherono had given him the piece of land as part payment of money he owed him for the pace-setting services he had offered.

He added that Cherono transferred the land and signed it off as Shaheen Saif Saeed, a name he acquired after adopting Qatari citizenship.

The complainant, however, supposedly had a change of heart months later and maintained that he never gave out the land, and was still a Kenyan whose official names remain Stephen Cheruiyot Chereno.