Four college basketball assistant coaches arrested for fraud and corruption
By Chris Stone
College basketball coaches at Arizona, Auburn, Oklahoma State and USC have been arrested for fraud and corruption charges
In a scandal sure to rock the college basketball world, four assistant coaches have been charged by the United States Department of Justice with committing acts of fraud and corruption.
The four assistants identified in legal documents posted on the Department of Justice’s website include Arizona’s Emanuel Richardson, Auburn’s Chuck Person, Oklahoma State’s LaMont Evans and USC’s Tony Bland. Evans worked previously for South Carolina before accepting a position with the Cowboys this season. Person is indicted as part of a separate complaint from Richardson, Evans and Bland.
The indictment of Person specifies that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Attorney’s Office “have been investigating the criminal influence of money on coaches and student-athletes who participate in intercollegiate basketball governed by the NCAA.”
In short, the FBI and USAO’s investigation “revealed numerous instances of bribes paid by athlete advisors — including financial advisors and business managers, among others — to assistant and associate basketball coaches employed by NCAA Division I universities.”
The complaint against Richardson, Evans and Bland describes an operation featuring a cooperating witness and two undercover FBI agents. Allegedly, in exchange for bribes, the three assistants coaches agreed to “direct certain student-athletes under their supervision to retain the business management and financial advisory services” of either the agents or confidential witness.
Person, meanwhile, is alleged to have both accepted bribe payments and to have defrauded universities by falsely certifying to those schools that they were unaware of rules violations.
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The obvious implications of these charges could be far reaching. Clearly, it is illegal under NCAA bylaws to accept payment to steer student-athletes to advisory services. If those student-athletes benefited in any way, they could be ruled ineligible by the NCAA.
The NCAA also has far-reaching authority to charge head coaches with failure to monitor their programs. Recently, Louisville’s Rick Pitino was suspended for multiple games after being charged with failure to monitor his program.
Clearly, the ramifications of this investigation won’t be known for some time, but expect this story to continue to develop in the coming weeks.