Miami says it will cooperate with any investigation, if requested, as corruption case rocks college basketball.
CORAL GABLES — The FBI arrested 10 people Tuesday, including four college basketball assistant coaches, in connection with a three-year federal investigation that appears to have ensnared the University of Miami program. The FBI said the case involves “bribery, corruption and fraud.”
Several major schools are involved, both named and unnamed, in a probe centered around six-figure payments being shuffled to five-star recruits.
No Hurricanes players or coaches were charged or named in the report, which charges a high-ranking Adidas executive and a Florida-based AAU coach, among others. However, a school described in the report fits Miami’s profile, and one of the players described appears to be one of UM basketball’s priority recruits.
“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,” UM Athletic Director Blake James said in a statement. “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.”
UM men’s basketball coach Jim Larranaga did not return a phone call Tuesday. His lawyer, Stuart Grossman, said this in an email to The Post: “We are reviewing the allegations but I assure you they do not apply to our much loved Coach L. I just can’t comment further. It’s so difficult to respond to shrouded allegations.”
The Hurricanes open fall practice Friday.
The assistant coaches in federal custody Tuesday morning were Oklahoma State’s Lamont Evans, Auburn’s Chuck Person, Arizona’s Emanuel Richardson and USC’s Tony Bland. They were expected to make court appearances later Tuesday.
The complaint also names James Gatto, director of global sports marketing at Adidas; Merl Code, who recently left Nike for Adidas; budding NBA agent Christian Dawkins; Jonathan Brad Augustine, program director of the Adidas-sponsored 1 Family AAU team; financial adviser Munish Sood; and Rashan Michel, a former NBA official and clothier.
In a news conference, Joon H. Kim, acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the results of the federal probe are “not pretty” and coaches and handlers were “circling blue-chip prospects like coyotes.”
According to Kim, “bribing coaches was a business investment” for Gatto, Code, Dawkins, Augustine, Sood and Michel. “They ignored red flags,” he said, “seeing only the green.”
The college coaches, Kim said, “built up these professionals, some of which they barely knew, with boldfaced lies.”
Officials said the investigation is ongoing. The NCAA was not aware of the probe before Tuesday, Kim said.
In a statement, NCAA President Mark Emmert called the charges “deeply disturbing” and said the NCAA has “no tolerance whatsoever” for the behavior.
“Coaches hold a unique position of trust with student-athletes and their families and these bribery allegations, if true, suggest an extraordinary and despicable breach of that trust,” Emmert said, adding that the NCAA “of course will support the ongoing criminal federal investigation.”
The FBI report sheds light on the seedy underbelly of college athletics, in which unpaid players have immense market value to street agents, shoe companies, the NCAA, its member schools, media partners and corporate sponsors, all of whom earn billions.
Miami fits the description of a school described in the complaint as “University-7”: a “private research university located in Florida,” with “approximately 16,000 students and over 2,600 faculty members.” The complaint describes that school as “one of the state’s largest universities” and one that fields “approximately 15” Division I teams, “including men’s basketball.” UM lists an official enrollment of 16,801 on its website. U.S. News describes UM’s student-faculty ratio as 12 to 1.
UM is also an Adidas-sponsored school, having signed in January 2015 a 12-year deal with a company worth some $90 million.
Its athletics programs were on probation from Oct. 2013 to Oct. 2016, stemming from a pay-for-play scandal involving rogue former booster Nevin Shapiro.
Between July and September, Gatto, Code, Dawkins and Augustine — “and others known and unknown” — allegedly conspired to funnel some $150,000 from Adidas to a “top high school basketball player expected to graduate in 2018. The purpose of that was to “assist one or more coaches at University-7 in securing” the player’s commitment to play at the school, and to “further ensure” the player would sign with Dawkins and Adidas once he entered the pros.
The complaint says Gatto and the others planned to conceal the payments by funneling them through the others — Gatto, being an Adidas executive, apparently could not be involved in the transactions — and Augustine’s AAU team.
According to authorities, the FBI wiretapped a call on approximately Aug. 9 between Dawkins and Code discussing paying the player and/or his family “at the request of at least one coach at University-7.” The two men discussed the involvement of the coach, referred to as “Coach-3” in the documents, in ensuring the money would be transferred in the manner described above.
On the call, authorities said, Dawkins told Code that, according to the AAU coach Augustine, the assistant in question “knows everything,” and they could “start the process” to funnel payments.
The report details a similar deal helping “University-6” — later confirmed to be Louisville — land “Player-10,” which the Louisville Courier-Journal reported was likely freshman Brian Bowen. Louisville, like Miami, is an Adidas school which plays in the ACC. The university recently signed a $160 million, 10-year extension of its apparel contract.
In June, the NCAA announced major penalties for Louisville basketball after finding escorts were paid to have sex with recruits. Coach Rick Pitino was suspended and the athletics department was put on a four-year probation.
On or about Aug. 11, Code told Gatto on a wiretapped call they had “another [University-6] situation,” referring a pay-for-play scheme at Louisville, with “University-7.” The men discussed how they would pay a recruit to play for the new school, rather than a rival school — “University-4” — that was offering $150,000, backed by a different apparel company.
UM, which finished 21-12 and made the NCAA Tournament last year, is considered to be a preseason contender for the ACC title.
The recruit potentially involved with the Hurricanes is believed to be Nassir Little, a 6-foot-7 forward from Orlando. Little, a five-star prospect who is described by recruiting website 247Sports as a “high choice” Miami recruit, plays for Augustine’s 1Family AAU team.
On 247Sports’ list of players who are “targets” for UM in 2018, Little is the only one who plays for 1Family.
That website rates Little as the No. 7 recruit in the country. Scout rates him 10th. ESPN has him 14th. In August, he named Miami as one of his final five schools, along with Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia Tech and Duke.
Duke and Arizona are Nike schools. UNC wears Nike’s Jordan Brand. Georgia Tech, previously sponsored by Russell Athletic, on Aug. 21 announced a new deal with Adidas.
On his Twitter account Monday evening, Little posted a message apparently aimed at unnamed critics.
“They hating like I didn’t work for it,” he tweeted.
Little, who has not made a public commitment to a school, was reportedly scheduled to take an official visit to UM this weekend.
When Scout.com asked Little in August why he was interested in Miami, he said: “I’m from Florida. I love the campus . ... Me and coach [Larranaga] and [assistant] coach [ Jamal] Brunt, we have a really good relationship and we click with each other.”