Whiskey_Clear
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I've been wondering when this angle would be brought up. I suspect some outrage will ensue when the players and players families get mentioned for prosecution.
Arrests coming due to college bball kickbacks
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I've been wondering when this angle would be brought up. I suspect some outrage will ensue when the players and players families get mentioned for prosecution.
RonJohn
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They have done a good job of PR to this point. I believe in the press conference, they described how they are going after the seedy underbelly of college basketball and people who take advantage of high school and college players. If they then are arresting the victimized kids and their parents, it won't fit that narrative.
As to charges, IANAL nor am I an accountant, but most failure to pay taxes cases that I have seen begin with IRS audits or demand letters. If the IRS gets their money, then the case is settled. If the person can't or won't pay then criminal charges are brought up. Also in the Bowen case, the payments were supposedly made this year. The tax return isn't due until next April, so his family could not have filed fraudulent tax forms yet.
It seems to me that if what Gatto did was fraud against the school because he knew the player would be ineligible and yet something or another and the school was defrauded, then the player who signed a form stating that he did not receive gifts would most definitely be more guilty.
Whiskey_Clear
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The kids and their parents are just as complicit. In some of these wires the kids is directly told the acts are illegal, and warned to stay silent / keep low profile. The parents that receive funds are obviously not "victims".
But the howls will be loud if the Feds start bringing charges on them...just my prediction. And someone will play a race card most likely.
As to the tax issue. I think an argument for conspiracy can be made in that regard based on the totality of the incident. But I agree it's much more difficult to make that case when the subject hasn't yet had the opportunity to file yet.
But the howls will be loud if the Feds start bringing charges on them...just my prediction. And someone will play a race card most likely.
As to the tax issue. I think an argument for conspiracy can be made in that regard based on the totality of the incident. But I agree it's much more difficult to make that case when the subject hasn't yet had the opportunity to file yet.
RonJohn
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I said something about this in an earlier post. Many fans and coaches too describe NCAA violations as "illegal". I seriously doubt that in the statements collected by the FBI, the subjects were thinking about federal statutes that were violated. They were referencing NCAA rules violations. I believe in the statement you are referring to he said something like the payments were illegal and the university was already on probation. If the university is on federal probation related to violations of federal statutes, I am not aware of that. The university in question however is on probation from the NCAA for violations of NCAA rules.
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I am generally in agreement that the recruits are being used by other people, but kids and their families must be pocketing some of the money and telling the university otherwise. I am do not know if that is illegal, but falsifying documents with the state or federal government is not a great plan. I agree the Bowen kid still has time to file a tax return showing the $100K (or however much he received), but he has already harmed the University of Louisville, a member of the Kentucky state university system. I do not know about UL, but my kids & I signed a bunch of documents that had lawyer looking declarations about honesty just above where I signed.
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A couple of things on this one.
First, it was first announced that these subpeona's were issued on Wednesday.
Second, if Adidas was doing it, I guarantee you Nike and UA were as well. Heck the layout of the scheme with player #12 all but shows that.
Third. remember that Merl Code recently came over to Adidas from running Nike's EYBL, so he likely has extensive knowledge of what Nike was doing. Makes me wonder if he is already talking.
One article I read there was a comment in it by someone that said Code was the most important person of the ones listed. That he would know 'where the bodies were buried at both Nike and Adidas'.
The podcast by Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander from Tuesday was a great one to listen to.
They had a great comment from a mid major HC, who was a former high major asst, where he said - "i'm just glad to be where I am as I don't have to worry about this, I will sleep well tonight. I'm not trying to recruit these top kids".
This is a good article from Pete Thamel on what the Feds are likely to do.
https://sports.yahoo.com/feds-decided-college-basketballs-corruption-worth-time-171833684.html
from the article:
Perhaps the most revealing part of the past 48 hours came from numerous conversations with coaches and assistants throughout the sport. There’s a near-universal admission that they had no sense that the activities of coaches, agents and sneaker company reps were against the law. (The NCAA’s impotent enforcement department had been incapable of policing the grassroots underworld for decades.) The culture of the activities described in the federal court documents – buying players, steering players and brokering deals for kickbacks – has become such an engrained part of the sport’s culture that there was widespread shock that it was raised to federal government implications. The activities the feds are investigating, to many in college basketball, were considered business as usual.
College basketball’s corrupt culture is going up against perhaps the most prestigious U.S. Attorney’s office in the country, the Southern District of New York. And this could end up as mismatched as a No. 1 vs. No. 16 seed in the NCAA tournament.
Why the mismatch? Legal experts note the resources available to the feds include the full scope of the IRS, 35,000 FBI employees and the ability for an office filled with ambitious lawyers to generate more headlines. One lawyer compared the difference between a federal investigation to a state one as the difference in resources between the ACC and American Athletic Conference.
There’s also a lot of worried corporations.
Code and Gatto face a maximum sentence of 80 years, and they certainly weren’t bidding against themselves for players.
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That AJC article mentions an article on Pastner from the Memphis Commerical-Appeal where Pastner was referred to as 'a compliance freak'.
I don't think they'll be in the cross-hairs. Who cares if some parents get in trouble. The steak to this sizzle is the coaches and execs. The lack of charges to parents is based on that IMHO.
Don't try to make this a race issue. We have plenty of threads for that.
But I've said too much, I'm on punishment from speaking on any serious issues.
Whiskey_Clear
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Those arguments can, and likely will, be used in defense. I wouldn't want to rely on that defense if I was in their shoes.
Also, ignorance of a law is not a defense. Did these subjects knowingly make acts in violation of state or federal law? That will be what is at issue.
Whiskey_Clear
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I don't think they'll be in the cross-hairs. Who cares if some parents get in trouble. The steak to this sizzle is the coaches and execs. The lack of charges to parents is based on that IMHO.
Don't try to make this a race issue. We have plenty of threads for that.
I'm not making it a race issue. But based upon how so many things become just that, I anticipate this will become another such instance. I hope I'm wrong and hope the masses look at individuals involved and their individual actions. If so it will be a rare occurrence imo.
I don't think it will. You'll have some who espouse how these families are being swept up in the money due to their financial situation. "How could they pass up $100,000 ..?" But it won't be a race issue, more of a class issue IMHO
The reality is many of these kids/families have their hands out pretty early in the process. There's wrong on both sides but I still hold the money guys to a higher standard than the families.
Jumpman
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Corruption is not a racial thing, it’s a human thing. Not sure why this was even mentioned.
forensicbuzz
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I think the Feds will leave the kids alone. The IRS may do some auditing based on the findings, but there won't be charges brought. I think the kids will have to deal with an NCAA with major egg on its face right now, and out for blood. With clear evidence, I think there will be many, many kids who lose their eligibility and scholarships due to the investigations. If I were some of these kids, I'd do my best to get finished with as much school as possible before the hammer dropped.
RonJohn
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I have stated many times that I don't see any violations of federal law in the Gatto indictment. It appears to be saying that fraud was committed because the prosecutor says that fraud was committed. I don't see any clear indication that Gatto did the following:
"Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both."
Gatto didn't obtain money or property by giving money to Bowen. The general legal definition of "scheme or artifice to defraud" from uslegal.com is "is a plan or trick to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services". He didn't deprive Louisville of a right to honest services.
In 2009 the Wall Street Journal had a story based on a book "Three Felonies a Day". The book on Amazon now shows a release date of 2011, so it must have been updated. The premise of the book and thus the WSJ story was that federal laws are so vague that prosecutors can argue that ANY person in the US has committed a felony. The WSJ article, or an article by Bob Barr had an example of a fish importer. Federal prosecutors believed that he had information about some acquaintances of his. He maintained that he didn't know anything. The prosecutors found that some of the fish he imported were smaller than allowed in the country they were caught in. In that country catching fish too small was a small fine. The federal prosecutors used a US law that didn't allow importing things that weren't legal in the country of origin to be sentenced to up to 30 years. He was convicted, but I don't remember what sentence he received. He appealed because the too small fish law had been declared unconstitutional in the origin country. However, the US appeals court ruled that even though it had been declared unconstitutional in the origin country before he was convicted, it hadn't been officially removed from the text of the statutes until after his conviction. So he remained in prison.
For the US Constitution, I am a pretty staunch originalist. For laws, I am pretty strict in the belief that they should be written with words that actually mean what the words say. They should be understandable. I know prosecutors will talk about how evil and sleazy defendants are. I don't have a problem with that. However if I am on a jury, I want the prosecutor to at least point to a statute that was violated and be able to explain to me how the defendant violated that statute. If he has to waive his arms and talk in circles and hope that I will see how things somehow might match the statute, it will be extremely hard to convince me. I'm not defending Gatto because I want shoe companies and sleazy AAU coaches to continue running basketball. I am actually happy that all of this is coming out into the open. I am concerned that federal prosecutors are warping the power of the federal government to go after whatever the unpopular group of the hour is. The law should be easy to understand. If a prosecutor alleges that someone broke the law, you should be able to look at the alleged actions of the defendant and understand that if the defendant did X that statute Y was indeed violated. I believe that in this case and in too many other cases, federal prosecutors say that the defendant did these vile things, and here is a statute that we can use to charge him. In my opinion, that is no different than a monocracy or a totaliarian government.
I don't think they'll be in the cross-hairs. Who cares if some parents get in trouble. The steak to this sizzle is the coaches and execs. The lack of charges to parents is based on that IMHO.
Don't try to make this a race issue. We have plenty of threads for that.
Myron? Is that you?
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It was a joke.
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FWIW, article on Zion Williamson and whether Adidas was steering him to KS.
https://www.chatsports.com/kansas-j...ing-steer-five-star-2018-recruit-kansas-35608
https://www.chatsports.com/kansas-j...ing-steer-five-star-2018-recruit-kansas-35608
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I too hope it stops, but I don't think any of us are shocked by this news. This has been going on for years. Remember Sebastian Telfair and the Middle Age White man...lol
To me, the only shocking thing to me is that Coach Cal and a few others haven't had their names dropped.