ZH: In a broad crackdown on college basketball corruption, U.S. prosecutors unveiled charges Tuesday against 10 coaches, managers, financial advisers and representatives of a sportswear company, accusing them of bribery, fraud and corruption in recruitment in college basketball. Additionally, a key part of the case includes allegations that an executive at a global apparel company bribed students to attend universities where the company sponsored athletic programs.
The Department of Justice announced Tuesday that college basketball coaches at University of Arizona, Auburn, University of Southern California, and Oklahoma State University had been arrested, as well as managers, financial advisors, and representatives of a major international sportswear company. The defendants include coaches at top U.S. college basketball programs, one agent, one financial adviser and a former referee. The coaches are Lamont Evans, an assistant at Oklahoma State University, Emanuel Richardson, an assistant for the Arizona Wildcats, and Chuck Person, associate head coach at Auburn University.
Jim Gatto, director of global sports marketing for basketball at Adidas, was also named as a defendant. According to the complaint, Gatto allegedly conspired with coaches to pay high school athletes to play at universities sponsored by Adidas (or as it is referred to in the complaints, “Company 1”).
According to Business Insider, Gatto and four other defendants have charged with “making and concealing bribe payments” to high school student athletes and/or their families. In one instance, Gatto and the other defendants reportedly funneled $100,000 to the family of a high school basketball player to convince the player to sign with a “public research university” in Kentucky.
In another case, Gatto and other defendants allegedly agreed to make payments up to $150,000 from Adidas to convince the player to join another team sponsored by the apparel company, a private university in Florida, according to filings. The university is not named, but based on information provided is likely University of Miami, which entered into a 12-year partnership with Adidas in 2015.
The investigation, which was been in progress since 2015, has been led by the FBI and the US Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York. Three separate complaints have been filed.
Other defendants include Jonathan Brad Augustine, president of nonprofit The League Initiative; Merl Code, the head of Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League as of 2013; and Christian Dawkins, a former sports agent who was reportedly fired in May for charging $42,000 in Uber rides on an NBA player’s credit card.
Man, so the NCAA is a crooked as the NFL?
“It ain’t true, is it, Joe?”
“Yes, kid, I’m afraid it is”,
“Well, I’d never have thought it.”
/sarc
Wow the FBI is so tied up investigating whether or not some kid got a bribe to wear a shirt that they don’t have time to investigate the millions of dollars in bribes to the Clinton Foundation.
If they all take a knee in the courtroom, they can go home.
University sports = Big money! Giant temptation! Huge Corruption!!!!!
No Shit !
The FBI did a real investigation, determined intent and made arrests?
Assholes let corruption run rampant in Government.
They ever start looking into the college football programs like this and a lot of things will become very clear……
Where are the Black Lives Matter thugs? Seems to me that the overwhelming number of high school players being preyed on are black. Oh wait– it doesn’t count because their families received bribe money, too.
Watch IRVING FRYAR drop a wide open pass in the Orange Bowl.
On top of that, their running back scored anyway, and the coach decided to go for the win with a LOW PERCENTAGE 2 point conversion (with virtually no time on the clock) on a stupid play where the player was double covered and the ball was thrown behind him anyway.
RIGGED!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h98_beH9V_8
@Some guy in my neighborhood…
Yeah, the FBI is all wound up in sports trivia, to the exclusion of Hillary’s massive global corruption racket, and the media is cool with that. But let PDT take a minute away from a storm to tweet about assholes on their knees, and it’s “Trump is too obsessed with football to do his job”. He must have struck a nerve.
Chuck Person played in the NBA. Didn’t he wisely invest his outrageous salary?
I thought bribery could only be a crime if the negotiations took place over a government communication network?
to hell with the NCAA. I hope this scandal makes it implode like a North Korean hydrogen bomb. they’re the fascist Politically Correct assholes who are intent on foisting the transgender bathroom brainwashing bullshit on us normal folks.