The NCAA is facing another significant scandal.
The FBI announced Tuesday that it has arrested four men’s basketball assistant coaches — Auburn’s Chuck Person, Arizona’s Emanuel Richardson, USC’s Tony Bland and Oklahoma State’s Lamont Evans — on federal corruption charges. The four coaches were among 10 total individuals arrested.
Those involved in the alleged corruption scheme are being accused of “taking thousands of dollars in bribes to steer NBA-destined college stars toward certain sports agents and financial advisers, authorities said,” according to The Associated Press.
“The picture painted by the charges brought today is not a pretty one,” acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Joon H. Kim said at a press conference, per ESPN.com. “Coaches at some of the nation’s top programs soliciting and accepting cash bribes. Managers and financial advisers circling blue-chip prospects like coyotes. And employees of one of the world’s largest sportswear companies secretly funneling cash to the families of high school recruits.”
Kim added, via ESPN.com: “For the 10 charged men, the madness of college basketball went well beyond the Big Dance in March. Month after month, the defendants exploited the hoop dreams of student-athletes around the country, allegedly treating them as little more than opportunities to enrich themselves through bribery and fraud schemes.”
James Gatto, director of global sports marketing at Adidas, Merl Code, Christian Dawkins, Jonathan Brad Augustine, Munish Sood and Rashan Michel also allegedly are involved in the corruption scheme.
One of the complaints involved Louisville, sources told ESPN, although the school in question publicly was named a “public research university located in Kentucky.”
Thumbnail photo via Kim Klement/USA TODAY Sports Images
