Four College Basketball Coaches Are Facing Federal Fraud And Corruption Charges

The United States Attorney’s Office announced on Tuesday that four college basketball coaches were among the 10 people — along with managers, financial representatives, and “representatives of a major international sportswear company” — facing federal fraud and corruption charges.

Joon H. Kim, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and William F. Sweeney, the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the FBI, will hold a press conference at noon on Tuesday to formally announce the charges. It’s a bombshell that will surely send waves around the college basketball world once more details emerge.

As for the four coaches implicated in the corruption and fraud scandal, according to NBC News’ Tom Winter, they are coaches from all over the country, coming from the staffs of Oklahoma State, Auburn, Arizona, and USC.

None of the coaches implicated are the head coaches at their respective programs, but Person, Evans, and Bland are all associate head coaches at their schools while Richardson is an assistant at Arizona. As for the “major international sportswear company” facing alleged charges, that would be adidas and their head of sports marketing Jim Gatto.

Louisville is also implicated in court documents, as it’s noted that a player received $100,000 over four installments from adidas to funnel him to Rick Pitino’s squad (“University-6” is pretty clearly Louisville).

The U.S. Attorney speaking on the investigation noted that it is still ongoing with plenty more interviews to come, meaning there will likely be more coaches and schools that find themselves with dirty laundry aired out and potentially dealing with fraud and corruption charges as well.