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An Adidas executive is facing wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy charges for agreeing to pay the family of a recruit to attend Louisville. (Anthony Geathers/The Washington Post)
Will Hobson
National sports reporter with a focus on accountability and investigations
NEW YORK — When an Adidas executive agreed to pay $100,000 to the family of a top basketball recruit to get him to commit to Louisville, he thought he was trying to match or beat an offer by Nike to secure the recruit for Oregon, according to his attorney.
The claim, made by a lawyer for Adidas executive Jim Gatto during the opening statements of a federal college basketball corruption trial Tuesday in New York, added a new school to the list of those already implicated as potentially benefiting from illicit recruiting assistance provided by shoe companies. Oregon has not previously been named in court documents and evidence produced during the Justice Department’s investigation into the basketball black market.
Gatto is charged with wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy for agreeing to pay the family of Brian Bowen to get the heralded high school player to play for Louisville in 2017.
[Inside the basketball black market that put Adidas in the FBI’s crosshairs]
According to his attorney, Casey Donnelly, Gatto agreed to make the payment — like others he allegedly arranged to steer recruits to Kansas, Miami and North Carolina State, other Adidas-sponsored teams — without any intent to defraud the schools, as prosecutors allege, but rather,to help them win recruiting battles with other schools sponsored by Nike and Under Armour.
“Jim was not trying to hurt these universities, he was trying to help them,” Donnelly said. “He thought he was doing his job.”
Donnelly did not detail the source of the information for the alleged bid from Nike on behalf of Oregon.
Gatto is standing trial this month in New York along with Merl Code, a former Adidas consultant, and Christian Dawkins, an aspiring NBA agent, both accused of working with Gatto on these secret payments to the families of top basketball recruits.
In the prosecution’s opening statement, assistant U.S. Attorney Eli Mark portrayed Gatto and the others as defrauding Louisville and the other schools, going to efforts to hide the payments because they knew what they were doing risked significant financial penalties for the schools if the NCAA found out.
“It was a blatant and brazen violation of the most fundamental rule in college basketball: You can’t pay to play,” Mark said.
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