UM basketball may be implicated in federal bribery case
Ten people associated with Division I college basketball programs, including Auburn assistant coach and former NBA player Chuck Person and Adidas director of global marketing James Gatto, face federal criminal charges of bribery, fraud and corruption, prosecutors announced in New York City on Tuesday after a two-year FBI investigation into “the criminal influence of money on coaches and student-athletes”.
Although the University of Miami basketball program is not named specifically in the court documents, it appears to be one of the schools referred to in the case as “University-7”.
In the section titled: “Relevant Individuals and Entities”, Gatto (“aka Jim”) is charged with offering to pay a high school student (“Player12”) $150,000 to attend “a private research university located in Florida. With approximately 16,000 students and over 2,600 faculty members, it is one of the state’s largest universities. University-7 fields approximately 15 varsity sports teams in NCAA Division I competition, including men’s basketball.”
It says Gatto “would funnel payments” to “Player-12” in order to get that player’s commitment to play at “University-7.” The UM athletic department is sponored by adidas.
“The University of Miami is aware of the indictments handed down today by the Department of Justice involving several men’s college basketball programs, coaches, financial advisors, agents and apparel executives,” in a statement released by UM athletic director Blake James. “As we are just learning the details, we cannot comment on the actions taken today by federal authorities. However, if requested, we will cooperate in any legal or NCAA review of the matter.”
Also according to the complaint, between September 2016 and September 2017 Person received more than $90,000 from an undercover FBI witness acting as an agent in exchange for agreeing to use his position as coach to steer Auburn basketball players to hire that agent and buy expensive custom suits from Rashan Michel, a Birmingham, Ala., native whose company sells suits to many NBA and NFL players.
The investigation also implicates Oklahoma State assistant coach Lamont Evans, USC assistant Tony Bland, and Arizona assistant coach Emanuel Richardson.
The U.S. State Attorney for the Southern District of New York Joon H. Kim will hold a press conference at noon to discuss details of the case.
This story was originally published September 26, 2017 at 1:16 PM with the headline "UM basketball may be implicated in federal bribery case."