WTF!? I mean, what in the actual F is that S?
Yeah, this case is officially a craptastic waste of everybody's time.
@RonJohn tried to warn us.
Arrests coming due to college bball kickbacks
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WTF!? I mean, what in the actual F is that S?
Yeah, this case is officially a craptastic waste of everybody's time.
@RonJohn tried to warn us.
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Bland's attorney:
“If the NCAA is unwilling to police itself, I have respect for the Southern District of New York prosecutors for being willing to do it,” Lichtman said. “This is a broken system.”
Said another way, if the NCAA doesn't care about the rules, then we are going to continue to cheat and break the rules.
“If the NCAA is unwilling to police itself, I have respect for the Southern District of New York prosecutors for being willing to do it,” Lichtman said. “This is a broken system.”
Said another way, if the NCAA doesn't care about the rules, then we are going to continue to cheat and break the rules.
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LOL!
RonJohn
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If I get a family member to sign up with satellite service and receive a $50 gift card for doing so, is that bribery?
If I get a coworker to use the same brokerage that I do and we both get a $250 dollar account credit, is that bribery?
I do understand that he was a government worker and had some level of authority over the guys. But from what I understand, he was paid and the athletes were paid for the athletes to sign with the management company and the advisor. I don't understand how a financial transaction that is mutually beneficial to all parties involved, and does not interfere with the coaches normal job responsibilities can be considered a criminal bribe. I do understand him accepting a plea. Federal prosecutors have an almost unlimited budged and unlimited resources. If he fought he could have ended up with significant prison time.
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No part of his job, where he had some level of influence over the players, paid him to guide players to one agency as opposed to any other agency. So he was cheating his employer by not working for the employer's benefit in lieu of other, potentially competing, interests.
You say the deal was "mutually beneficial to all parties involved" when you do not actually know that. That agency may not have been the best for that player. And since the player was essentially discouraged from considering other agents, he also did not know if the deal was in his benefit.
I am not sure how it benefits the university for their assistant coaches to be working part time (undercover) for an agent. Maybe you can explain that. If they do not know he is working for the agent while on their payroll, he has defrauded them.
RonJohn
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Does anyone in your office's job description say they sell Girl Scout cookies, talk to a bank about a mortgage, or negotiate pricing for home repairs? If their job description does not specifically state that does that mean that they should go to jail if they sell Girl Scout cookies at the job place?
I said "mutually beneficial to all parties involved" because in the article I read about it it stated that the coach received $13k and deposited $9k of that in accounts of the players. He kept $4k. The article does not state that the agency acted in malfeasance toward the players. It does not state that the financial advisor did anything illegal or unethical with the players money. It doesn't even state that the players signed contracts with either after receiving the money. I would guess that they did sign since they received money. With the way that the federal prosecutors have been spinning this whole series of cases, I am almost certain that if the players had been subject to unethical actions by either the agent or the advisor that it would have been highlighted and that those persons would be prosecuted also. Since they haven't pressed that, I tend to believe that they have acted as normal agents and financial advisors.
As I asked above, does it benefit any employer if their employees sell Girl Scout cookies at the office? Also, I didn't read anywhere that this coach neglected duties and discussed the referrals while "on the clock". He might have, but even if he did the Girl Scout cookie question applies. Also, he pleaded guilty to accepting a bribe, not fraud.
What I have said many times is that these are really scummy people. The FBI and the prosecutors are making the distinction very muddy between being scummy and breaking the law. I keep trying to look through all of the scummy slime to see what laws were violated. All I see are vague descriptions of scummy behaviour, not actual violations of law.
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You can bet he didn’t report that as income and pay taxes on it. You can also bet it’s against the rules in college athletics to behave like that. What you can’t bet on is that the NCAA will do anything about the breaking of its rules and the illegal behavior.
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You may not remember it, but I bet you signed a non-compete agreement when you started with your current employer. They have become standard in the HR playbook. Almost every employer lets the girl scout cookie sales program exist on company time. The same is true with the Final Four brackets and Super Bowl grids. Shilling for an agent for cash will always be out of bounds. They are not close to similar.
RonJohn
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If I made a referral to a real estate agent to a coworker and received a finder's fee, it wouldn't violate anything. If this coach violated a clause in his contract, that is a civil matter, not a criminal one. As I said, these are scummy people. If you can point to a federal statute that he definitely violated, then please point me to it.
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Did he report the income or not? He wasn't accused of tax fraud as far as I know. He definitely violated NCAA rules because he passed money to one player and one recruit. As I asked @orientalnc , what federal statute did he violate? Not what NCAA rule did he break or scummy thing did he do. What federal statute was violated?
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The prosecutors found at least one. And his attorneys agreed that he was guilty (or at least likely to lose at trial). Maybe you should be his attorney.
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He plead guilty to a lesser crime.
You seem like you work for the NCAA. It’s really odd and creepy you don’t think tax evasion and bribery while using college kids as a pawn are a problem.
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By the way, he was indicted on 4 felonies including wire fraud and conspiracy IIRC. And his attorney is a Duke guy - surprise LOL. Anyway these are FELONIES. And he plead down in count and dollar amount of what he actually did in order to avoid trial and get a lesser sentence.
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I said in my first post about this case that he probably plead in order to avoid long prison time. The article says that since he is a first offender, with this plea he probably will receive probation with no jail time. Compared to most individuals, federal prosecutors have unlimited funds and resources. You don't have to be guilty of a crime to go to jail for a long time. I can point to several cases where individuals did indeed go to jail for a very long time for "technically" breaking laws that were ridiculously prosecuted. There was a famous case several years ago where an individual(autistic I believe) committed suicide to avoid going to jail for 30 years for downloading public domain records on an open public access wifi network. If a federal prosecutor decided to come after you or me, neither one of us would have enough money to fight them.
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This is getting really weird dude. This isn’t technicality stuff. The dude didn’t pay his taxes, committed conspiracy, bribery, and wire fraud. It’s not like he ran a stop sign that was obscured by a bush.
RonJohn
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Show me any evidence that he committed tax evasion. I have not seen any evidence whatsoever other than your observation that you "bet" he did. His "bribe" would be called a finder's fee in virtually any other application. (refer a buyer to a real estate agent, refer a new customer to a financial advisor, refer your brother to your satellite provider, etc.) I do not work for the NCAA, and I do not like how they "investigate" and "enforce" NCAA rules.(lack of either) However, when deciding if someone broke a law or not, I like to know which law in particular they are accused of breaking and details of how they did or did not break that law. I don't decide someone should be in jail because I "bet" they maybe did something I don't like.
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Where do you see ANY evidence of tax evasion? Conspiracy and wire fraud are things tied to an underlying felony, not crimes on their own. What exactly was the "bribe" and exactly what federal statute does that "bribe" violate? It is technical, and you have not presented any actual facts of a violation of the law.
You can "bribe" your children to clean their room using the definition of the word. Such a "bribe" isn't a violation of the law.
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He didn’t bribe his kids to clean their room. Bless your heart. This is not a court of law, as you know. I am not one of the attorneys, as you know. I was not there, as you no. So stop insisting that since we can’t prosecute the case on this message board the guy should go free. This is incredibly bizarre. Why didn’t you offer your world class litigation services to him? YOU FAILED HIM. He’s plead guilty for no reason, other than you didn’t help. This was an easy out and YOU FAILED HIM.
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I all of this, I haven't seen anything other than "bet" he did and vague descriptions of something that maybe he did. Since you are so certain that he violated federal law, please describe what law you are aware of that he violated. Not what you "bet" he did, but what you are actually aware of.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/walter...z-hacker-case-ends-with-suicide/#309ef0f457cd
AAron Swartz was accused of violating the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He connected to free and open wifi and downloaded public domain documents at MIT. MIT did not want him to be prosecuted. The organization who charges for access to the public domain documents did not want him charged. He was a computer programming prodigy who started working on internet standards(inside internet standards organizations) when he was around 12 or 13. He ended up committing suicide instead of potentially facing a 35 year sentence. Federal prosecutors said that since he used a fake email address to connect to the wifi and worked around barriers to prevent copying that he was guilty. MIT said that there were absolutely no barriers in place to prevent copying. I myself have used a fake email address for connecting to wifi.(I don't want to get annoying emails)
Even absolutely innocent things can be spun into federal crimes. For me to be convinced that anyone committed crimes, I want to understand the text of the law and the actual actions that supposedly violated that text. I "think" this or I "bet" that doesn't convince myself of anything.
RonJohn
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@bwelbo To help you out, here is the federal bribery statute:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/201
In order to be guilty of bribery an official has to receive something of value in exchange for:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/201
In order to be guilty of bribery an official has to receive something of value in exchange for:
- Having an official act influenced
- Committinh fraud against the United States
- or Omitting an official official duty or acting in violation of their official duty