Palm Beach County deputies played defense against a group's ploy to solicit drivers into giving them money for a semiprofessional football team for which they didn't actually play.

The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said Shawn Martin, 23, Pernell Taylor and Quinton Embery, both 24, posed as members of the South Florida 49ers and huddled in a median trying to get cash for a trip to California.

The team is a legitimate, semiprofessional team based in South Florida for men who are 18 and older.

As they were trying to get "donations" Monday, a deputy saw that the men were holding up traffic at the intersection of Forest Hill Boulevard and Military Trail just west of Palm Springs.

It's against the law to stand in the street to ask for money, and the deputy also determined they were making the roadway unsafe, according to an arrest report.

The deputy pulled over and talked to the men, who told him they were raising money so their team could play against a team in California. When pressed for information about the team and their coach, the men said they could recall only that their coach was called Tyrone.

The deputy found a number for the real South Florida 49ers coach — Dedrick Moss — and gave him a call.

Moss told the deputy that he's heard complaints about this in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. His team, he said, doesn't solicit money for trips.

Deputies flagged the three after their story started to dissolve, and took them in for questioning.

Confronted with the lie, Embery had one last Hail Mary for deputies — he said he wasn't on the team, according to the report, but that he and his friends were trying to start a new team. The money was actually going toward new equipment, not a trip to California, he said.

The coach for their new, local team was named Tyrone, Embery told deputies. According to the report, he hoped the team would travel to California in the future, but had no immediate plans to go there.

Martin, on the other hand, had a slightly different story, deputies said. He told deputies the new team they were starting was traveling to California to recruit players. Coach Tyrone was actually Embery's brother, he said, and that the trio had been soliciting money for this team for years.

This isn't the first time Embery has been accused of running a similar scam. In June 2013, Embery and a group of men in their 20s were issued a civil violation citation for soliciting money without a permit in Delray Beach for a fake football camp.

They told drivers they were raising money for a football camp in Alabama which didn't actually exist.

Deputies said proof of Embery's new team remains to be seen. In total, the trio had raised just short of $80.

All three are charged with organized scheme to defraud and unlawful use of a state right-of-way.

kjacobson@sunsentinel.com, 561-243-6547 or Twitter @katejacobson