By Dalton Ray —
A school in Kentucky matching the description of the University of Louisville is involved in fraud and corruption case, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York.
Four men’s college basketball coaches have been arrested by the FBI in a suspected corruption case. The coaches and other six individuals included in the indictment — managers, financial advisers and representatives of major international sportswear companies — are suspected of funneling money to bribe players to go to certain universities.
Jim Gatto, adidas Director of Global Sports Marketing for basketball, and Merl Code, Nike’s head Elite Youth Basketball League, are mentioned. U of L is sponsored by adidas and the University of Kentucky is sponsored by Nike.
The coaches mentioned are Lamont Evans of Oklahoma State, Chuck Person of Auburn University, Emanuel Richardson of Arizona and Tony Bland of USC.
The indictment accuses the individuals involved of funneling about $100,000 to a high school All-American’s family from May to September 2017. The payments were wired to third-party consultants who then made cash payments to the family.
According to an FBI agent, the men involved agreed to the deal in late May and early June.
Five-star McDonald’s All-American Brian Bowen committed to Louisville on June 3. Bowen’s name is not mentioned.
According to the indictment, the FBI video-recorded a July 27 meeting in Las Vegas that involved who appeared to be a U of L coach discussing the recruitment of a high school player expected to graduate in 2019.
During the meeting, one of the defendants mentioned that the university was already on NCAA probation which meant the parties would need to be “particularly careful” about how the money would be passed. The coach acknowledged the situation saying, “We gotta be very low key.”
Kenny Klein, the athletic department’s spokesperson, said he doesn’t have any knowledge of the situation.
According to court papers, prosecutors said the FBI has been investigating criminal influence of student-athletes who participate in NCAA basketball since 2015.
This story will be updated.
You can follow Dalton Ray on Twitter @dray5477.
File photo / The Louisville Cardinal
