New Schools Named in FBI Investigation

[Aargh]

The judge seems to be not allowing as evidence any of the phone conversations between coaches and the shoe companies. Coaches and shoe guys are recorded discussing jobs, housing, and money, and the judge is ruling that irrelevant. Did the judge graduate from the law school f one of the programs being investigated?

https://www.kansas.com/sports/college/big-12/university-of-kansas/article220106280.html

[Stickboy46]

That is pretty interesting as that seems to be very important to the defenses case. If the schools knew what was going on and were involved, there is no crime here. LOTS of NCAA violations but no laws broke.

[Shockm]

Watch to see if KU holds DaSouza out of their first real game. If they do, they feel like something is going to happen. If not, they feel relatively safe.

[bleed yellow]

If KU makes any changes at all after all of this the first and foremost change will probably be less cell phone usage to communicate about recruiting.. Imagine the look on Self's face when he found out he and all of assistants phones were wire tapped. Lol

[Dan]

Actually, the 2nd change is that will switch to Nike. They are finding themselves out of the inner circle in this trial.

[asiseeit]

The biggest programs will never get punished for the same reasons the political elites don't

[Wooglin]

The judge seems to be not allowing as evidence any of the phone conversations between coaches and the shoe companies. Coaches and shoe guys are recorded discussing jobs, housing, and money, and the judge is ruling that irrelevant. Did the judge graduate from the law school f one of the programs being investigated?

https://www.kansas.com/sports/colleg...220106280.html

The way I understand it is the judge is disallowing it because the conversations would be an NCAA violation rather than a law being broken. The judge made it clear that that amateurism is not on trial and that should be decided by the NCAA. By disallowing that testimony, it doesn't get the mentioned parties off the hook, it only removes the defenses argument that they were in cahoots with the coaches. It strengthens the prosecutions position and hurts the defense. Once the ruling comes down, if the NCAA chooses to have any credibility at all, they will have to pursue investigation of those conversations. The NCAA can then slap the P5 schools on the wrist, and beg them to be more covert next time. If the defendants are found innocent, it does NOT mean the schools are off the hook. This trial is criminal and has nothing to do with any potential NCAA violations.

[ShockerDropOut]

The NCAA has no credibility. See UNC academic scandal.

[Wooglin]

The NCAA has no credibility. See UNC academic scandal.

The NCAA tried and failed with the UNC academic issue. It was determined that it was an academic rather than athletic issue since non student athletes also took the same sham classes. Since it potentially benefitted the entire student body, the NCAA had no teeth in the argument. UNC was brilliant using this argument, and lucky with the decision.

https://sports.yahoo.com/ncaa-hands-no-punishment-north-carolina-academic-fraud-scandal-141411202.html

[Shockm]

The way I understand it is the judge is disallowing it because the conversations would be an NCAA violation rather than a law being broken. The judge made it clear that that amateurism is not on trial and that should be decided by the NCAA. By disallowing that testimony, it doesn't get the mentioned parties off the hook, it only removes the defenses argument that they were in cahoots with the coaches. It strengthens the prosecutions position and hurts the defense. Once the ruling comes down, if the NCAA chooses to have any credibility at all, they will have to pursue investigation of those conversations. The NCAA can then slap the P5 schools on the wrist, and beg them to be more covert next time. If the defendants are found innocent, it does NOT mean the schools are off the hook. This trial is criminal and has nothing to do with any potential NCAA violations.

Aargh said "Coaches and shoe guys are recorded discussing jobs, housing, and money, and the judge is ruling that irrelevant."

Maybe I don't understand what is going on. I thought MONEY was at the heart of this trial. The fraud is about money changing hands that isn't being taxed. Am I missing something?

[MoValley John]

Aargh said "Coaches and shoe guys are recorded discussing jobs, housing, and money, and the judge is ruling that irrelevant."

Maybe I don't understand what is going on. I thought MONEY was at the heart of this trial. The fraud is about money changing hands that isn't being taxed. Am I missing something?

You might not understand. There are two separate issues, one is criminal issue, the other is is a civil issue. The courts aren't dealing with an NCAA infraction. When the NCAA gets the go ahead to proceeed, should they chose to penalize Kansas (they may or may not) then that could become a civil case and Kansas could then take the NCAA to court.

[AZ Shocker]

Aargh said "Coaches and shoe guys are recorded discussing jobs, housing, and money, and the judge is ruling that irrelevant."

And here I thought Judge Ito was retired...:rolleyes:

[1972Shocker]

The folloowing comment from Coach K was kind of laughable to me:

“It’s a blip. It’s not what’s happening,” K said at the Blue Devils’ media day. “We haven’t lost guys because of someone’s shoe. I’m not aware of that.”

Uh, Coach K ithe issue isn't about players you may have lost over shoes, it's about how many players you signed because of shoes (shoe money that is).

[Shockm]

You might not understand. There are two separate issues, one is criminal issue, the other is is a civil issue. The courts aren't dealing with an NCAA infraction. When the NCAA gets the go ahead to proceeed, should they chose to penalize Kansas (they may or may not) then that could become a civil case and Kansas could then take the NCAA to court.

I already understood that the courts aren't dealing with the NCAA infraction. So do a better job of explaining the criminal issue the NCAA is dealing with regarding these schools. What law did these shoe companies break by recruiting players and paying them MONEY.

[1972Shocker]

Aargh said "Coaches and shoe guys are recorded discussing jobs, housing, and money, and the judge is ruling that irrelevant."

Maybe I don't understand what is going on. I thought MONEY was at the heart of this trial. The fraud is about money changing hands that isn't being taxed. Am I missing something?

I don't think this trial has anything to do with income tax evasion or fraud althought that could come later but the IRS would iniitate that.

Here are excerpts from somehwhat long but pretty good SI article that explains the legalities of this triial:

If this trial was about proving the existence of corruption in “big time” college basketball, the government would have already proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

The case is neither designed to prove that corruption is rampant in college basketball nor establish that various persons have violated NCAA amateurism rules. Remember, amateurism rules aren’t laws. They are merely contractual requirements for admittance and subsequent compliance in the NCAA, a not-for-profit entity. It is not now, nor has it ever been, a crime to pay someone to attend a particular college.

With that in mind, some have ridiculed the Justice Department for prosecuting what appears to be violations of NCAA rules, rather than actual laws. Prosecutors, however, would dismiss such critiques as missing the core of their case. The Justice Department essentially has a two-prong theory of criminal conduct.

First, the Justice Department contends that payoffs to recruits defraud the universities that enroll those recruits. This might seem paradoxical: why would universities complain about enrolling superstar basketball players who were aggressively recruited by rival programs? The reason, the Justice Department argues, begins when the recruit accepts a payoff. It is at that moment when he becomes, at least in principle, ineligible to play NCAA basketball.....The Justice Department also maintains that Adidas employees, agents, coaches and family members of recruits knowingly and unlawfully conspired to harm certain schools.

Second, the Justice Department insists that the conspirators interfered with targeted schools’ ability to “control their assets”—a term of art that includes distribution of finite scholarships and financial aid packages. Had the colleges not been deceived in enrolling ineligible recruits, they could have directed these “assets” to recruits who were both in appearance and in actuality complying with NCAA rules.

With the government’s overarching theory of crime in mind, the three defendants face two types of counts, both of which are felony level. The first is wire fraud, the second is conspiracy to commit wire fraud,

If the government only proves that the defendants conspired to engage in conduct that broke NCAA rules, the government would have failed to prove conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

The fact that Gatto, Code and Dawkins elected to go to trial is the most telling sign that they and their attorneys are highly confident they will be found not guilty. Becoming a defendant in a federal criminal case is a frightening proposition. According to Justice Department data, approximately 90% of defendants in federal prosecutions plead guilty rather than go to trial.

The three defendants’ attorneys contend that the government’s case is built around proving a legally inconsequential point: the defendants played some role in paying recruits to attend certain colleges. The defendants insist such activity can’t be fraud since the alleged victims—the schools—aren’t victims.

In fact, one logical interpretation of so-called “pay-to-play” transactions is that everyone involved enjoys some kind of gain. The recruit “gains” money that reflects real compensation for his services; the college “gains” a star recruit who should help the team win games and sell tickets, merchandise and digital rights (not to mention help the college’s admissions officers recruit high school students who are swayed by the prospect of attending a school with a top basketball program and help the college’s foundation and alumni staff raise money from graduates who are more likely to donate when their favorite college basketball team succeeds); and Adidas “gained” by the placement of a recruit at an Adidas-sponsored school as well as obtaining access to a recruit who could one day enter the NBA and sign a shoe contract.

To be sure, there are “losers” in these transactions. NCAA compliance officials, for instance, see their rules brazenly disregarded. Likewise, state and federal treasury officials have reason to complain that their agencies haven’t received tax payments on illicit payouts to recruits and their families. But, for now, the grievances of NCAA staff and treasury officials are beside the point: the government’s prosecution is built around portraying the schools as victims of fraud.

Keep in mind, the corruption litigation will likely not be over for months. There are two other trials scheduled. In February, a trial for former NBA player and Auburn assistant Chuck Person is scheduled. In April, three coaches—Tony Bland, Lamont Evans and Emanuel “Book” Richardson—will have their day in court. It’s possible these defendants could reach plea deals with the government before their trials start. They would be more inclined to do so if Gatto, Code and Dawkins are convicted and less inclined if the three men are found not guilty. Also, convictions would be followed by appeals that extend the litigation calendar into 2020 or beyond.

If the NCAA needs to wait until 2019 or 2020 to take any action against implicated schools, the punishments would be for misconduct that took place years earlier. In some instances, coaches and players who were not on the team when the misconduct occurred would suffer the punishment. This is an inherent drawback of the NCAA’s system for punishing schools: when the penalties are imposed for misconduct years after it occurred, the wrongdoers are often long gone and persons who had done no wrong internalize the sanction.

I am not convinced the government has a real storng case here and I would not be surprised with an acquittal. If that happens the Government would need to evaluate whether they want to proceed with the remaining two trials or just drop it. If they drop it then the NCAA could begain whatever proceedings they deem necessary. Who knows for sure where that might lead but I'm not betting it will damage the schools involved. Perhaps it will lead to a massive overhaul of NCAA rules for college football and basketball as well as all other sports.

[MoValley John]

I already understood that the courts aren't dealing with the NCAA infraction. So do a better job of explaining the criminal issue the NCAA is dealing with regarding these schools. What law did these shoe companies break by recruiting players and paying them MONEY.

Wire fraud. The feds case is built on the premise that the schools weren't involved and the money being sent to families of players was without the knowledge of the school. The feds case is built upon the school being victim of outsider meddling. It's complicated, but if the school directly paid a player, they are doing nothing illegal, just cheating.

This is not exact, there are nuances, but the case follows this logic. I'm not sure of a conviction. That said, Kansas is in hot, hot water with the NCAA.

[mattdalt]

My limited understanding is that the student athletes sign something each year indicating they are "amateurs." If they have recieved money to attend a school for basketball, they are no longer amateurs. Ergo, Defrauding the school.