HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. — A judge has declared a mistrial in the case of a former college football player charged with violating North Carolina’s sports agent law nearly a decade ago.

Christopher Hawkins faced four counts tied to providing cash to three former Tar Heels football players in 2010. But after more than seven hours of deliberations Friday afternoon and Monday, the jury informed Superior Court Judge John O. Craig III that it couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict on any charge.

That leaves open the possibility of another trial. Prosecutor W. Scott Harkey and defense attorney Natasha A. Adams declined to comment about the next steps.

Hawkins — who played at UNC and Marshall from 2001 to 2005 — was first charged in 2015, with prosecutors adding additional charges last April. The biggest amount involved was $13,700 to Robert Quinn, now a nine-year NFL veteran who never played the 2010 season and was declared permanently ineligible by the NCAA that fall. Hawkins was also alleged to have helped him sell game-used equipment for another $1,700.

The additional charges involved Hawkins providing money to former UNC football players Charles Brown ($1,000) and Kendric Burney ($1,500) to acquire game-used equipment for sale through a memorabilia dealer.

Monday’s mistrial comes nearly a decade after the North Carolina Secretary of State’s office began its investigation, which followed an NCAA probe launched in summer 2010 into improper benefits and academic misconduct within the UNC football program. UNC faces no punitive actions from case developments because the NCAA issued sanctions in March 2012 to resolve the case that involved Hawkins.

In all, six people were charged in the Secretary of State’s investigation. The first five were charged in September 2013, and those cases were resolved through either dismissals or deals by prosecutors – notably with former NFL agent Terry Watson pleading guilty in April 2017 for probation and a fine.

Hawkins’ case was the only one to reach trial.

Testimony began Wednesday, starting with prosecutors calling cooperating witness Louis Martin “Marty” Blazer III from the federal corruption investigation into college basketball, followed by Quinn on Thursday via video from Texas.

Harkey had argued to the jury that Hawkins was trying to steer players to sign with Blazer as a financial adviser or NFL agent Peter Schaffer, who has not been charged with wrongdoing and has denied providing improper benefits to any UNC players in previous interviews with The Associated Press.

Defense attorneys had portrayed Hawkins as a mentor helping players, with Adams telling the jury Friday that Hawkins was not a runner, nor an employee of Blazer or Schaffer.

The state’s Uniform Athlete Agents Act prohibits illegally luring collegiate athletes into contracts by providing them eligibility-jeopardizing money, gifts or other items of value to entice them to sign contracts. A version of the act has been in place in at least 40 states and other jurisdictions, though cases are rarely pursued and difficult to prosecute.

In North Carolina, it’s a low-level felony.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

On a late April evening almost three years ago, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies responded to a disturbance call in the Windsor Hills neighborhood.

They found Alecia Benson on her back inside a well-kept home, battered, unconscious and gasping for air.

Her only child, former NFL player De’von Hall, smoked a cigarette in the middle of the street outside. He fought three deputies who tried to handcuff him before being restrained and, days later, was charged with murdering his mother with his bare hands.

L.A. County Superior Court Judge Lauren Weis Bernstein declared Hall not guilty by reason of insanity during a hearing last week. The defense and prosecution stipulated to the change of plea based on reports by doctors from both sides, according to a district attorney’s spokesman.

Hall, who played defensive back during brief appearances with the Minnesota Vikings, Indianapolis Colts and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, will be sent to a state hospital for an indeterminate amount of time.

“Alecia Benson was a wonderful mother who tragically died,” Hall’s public defender, Ashley Morgan Price, said in a statement. “Mr. Hall will now go to a state hospital to get the type of mental health treatment that Ms. Benson always wanted for her son.”

Hall struggled with mental health issues for several years, his family and friends told The Times for an article in 2017. The professional football career of the former standout at Reseda Cleveland High and Utah State ended, in part, because of concerns over unusual behavior.

The behavior grew more alarming after football. He wore headphones to combat voices in his head. He posted nonsensical messages on social media. He appeared for a Canadian Football League combine event in Santa Monica wearing a wrinkled suit. He slept in a park near the Coliseum — despite Benson’s attempts to get him to move into an apartment — and darted through traffic on Western Avenue. When a group of former Utah State teammates encountered him outside the Coliseum in 2013, he dragged a garbage bag and spoke gibberish.

Benson, 48, worked for a local doctor. Family members remembered her easy laugh, serving as a confidante for nieces and nephews and viewing caring for her son, even as his mental health declined, as her responsibility.

After deputies arrested Hall on April 24, 2017, they found $3,000 in $20 bills inside his backpack. He also carried a gym bag containing a hair dryer, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, three pair of tennis shoes and two Batman DVDs.

Legal proceedings were suspended in June 2017 amid doubts about Hall’s mental health. He was found incompetent to stand trial that December and sent to Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino. The criminal proceedings eventually resumed, and Hall returned to the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown Los Angeles.