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NEW YORK – A former financial adviser, who pleaded guilty to conspiring with three men for the purpose of transferring Adidas money to families of prestigious recruits and bribing university basketball coaches , said Wednesday to a jury that he had been working with another sports agent giving money to people associated with NBA players, Kyle Kuzma and Markelle Fultz, while they were still at home. l & # 39; university.
Munish Sood, of Princeton, NJ, said that he had made a loan of $ 30,000 to a Fultz-related person and paid an undisclosed amount to one of Kuzma's partners while They were still playing at the University of Washington and at the University of Utah, respectively. Sood said it made payments at the request of NBA agent Stephen Pina of ASM Sports.
While the first federal trial begins Monday in a corruption scandal that threatens to engulf academic basketball, coaches from four schools mentioned in the indictment are not the only ones to be nervous. Coaches in half a dozen other schools could arrive.
The government alleges that the defendants defrauded some NCAA Division 1 schools by encouraging them to provide financial assistance to non-eligible players, their families having received improper payments to sign with teams sponsored by Adidas.
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Fultz, of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, played one season for the Huskies and was the No. 1 pick in the 2017 NBA draft by the Philadelphia 76ers. Kuzma, from Flint, Mich., Has played three seasons with the Utes and was a first-round pick for the Los Angeles Lakers in 2017.
In August, Sood pleaded guilty to plotting bribery, honest service fraud and committing offenses, bribing an officer of a federally-funded organization, and committing bribes. online fraud plot. He faces 35 years in prison.
As part of his plea agreement, he agreed to testify in this month's federal criminal lawsuit, involving Adidas leader Jim Gatto, the former adidas consultant, Merl. Code, and Christian Dawkins, a former runner of Andy Miller, former NBA agent. The trio is accused of a paid ploy to send the best recruits to schools sponsored by Adidas, Kansas, Louisville, Miami and NC State. Each of the men pleaded not guilty.
At the same time, Collin Sexton, Alabama's former guard, the No. 8 pick of the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA draft in June, was also brought back into disorder Wednesday, the second day of the trial in front of the palace. Federal Justice Daniel Patrick Moynihan in Manhattan.
In a message Dawkins sent to Sood and others in 2017, which the federal government highlighted on Wednesday, he wrote that he gave Sexton $ 5,000 and $ 2,000 to Brian Bowen, a freshman at Louisville last year.
In an email Dawkins sent to Sood and others on September 5, 2017, Dawkins proposed a business plan for their new sports agency. He suggested paying Sexton $ 1,500 a month and paying $ 21,000 for his family's travel expenses. Dawkins also wanted to give Sexton's brother a job, paying him $ 170,000 over four years.
Officials in Alabama investigated Sexton's relationship with Dawkins last year. Sexton was suspended from a game for breaking the NCAA rules before returning to the field.
On Wednesday, Sood also acknowledged during his cross-examination led by Dawkins' lawyer, Steve Haney, that he had met Pina and another man to discuss the payment of attacker Bam Adebayo of Kentucky, as well as other British players, hope to convince them of its financial management. company.
"Stephen Pina was trying to position you by paying Bam Adebayo and other children in Kentucky, and he said it would be expensive, would not it?" Haney asked.
"Yes," Sood replied.
"And you understood that it meant you were going to pay a lot of money to have these kids from Kentucky, would not you? Haney asked.
"Yes," says Sood.
Federal prosecutors opened Sood's examination-in-chief on Wednesday morning asking him if he had met Brian Bowen Sr., the father of the former Louisville player, in July 2017. According to prosecutors, Sood met Bowen's father in a parking lot in northern New Jersey, where he handed her an envelope of $ 19,400 in cash.
According to the Government, this was the first of four payments, totaling $ 100,000. The first was provided by one of Sood's new trading partners, two FBI infiltrators who were investigating allegations of corruption in the sport.
At a meeting in a hotel room in Manhattan on June 20, 2017, Code, Dawkins and Sood having tried to persuade the undercover agents to invest in the new management company of Dawkins and Sood, Code explained how the highly competitive "war of sneakers" between Adidas, Nike and UnderArmour worked. The meeting also brought together Pittsburgh's financial planner, Marty Blazer, a former Sood business partner, who worked as an FBI informant.
The FBI secretly videotaped the meeting on video and parties were shown to the jury on Wednesday.
"We all have our own leagues with our own kids and we try to keep our kids up to see them grow and develop, but we hope to be able to sign them when they become pros," Code said at the meeting.
"It's the ultimate goal." Now, in the meantime, you're trying to push these kids into your affiliated schools – for example, Indiana, Kansas, the Arizona State, Miami are Adidas schools. If I could have children in my umbrella at the local level, and now I can direct these children to the schools of my sponsors, I win at the local level My colleges win and then I hope to be able to sign them as professionals. "
But Code also made it clear to FBI agents that the sponsor of a school's sneakers was not always the most important factor, even though he was working as a contract consultant for Adidas. Code, a former Clemson keeper from Greenville, SC, had worked at Nike for 14 years before being attracted to Adidas.
"We have enough relationships with Nike schools," Code told agents, before mentioning Alabama, Arizona, and the state of Florida as Nike-sponsored schools where he was maintaining strong relationships.
Bowen, of Saginaw, Mich., Was the No. 14 player in the 2017 ESPN Top 100 and was among the last signing this year. Before choosing the Cardinals, he envisioned a handful of schools sponsored by Nike – Arizona, Creighton, DePaul, Oregon, and Texas.
During the videotaped meeting, Code told FBI agents that Oregon had offered Bowen an "astronomical" amount to sign at this location.
"I said:" He's not going to Oregon. "Wait a minute, let me work on the phone, we'll do something," Code said.
Bowen is engaged in Louisville on June 4, 2017.
"This was done in what, two or three days? It was very simple," Code told agents. "Everyone won."
In a statement released Tuesday evening, the University of Oregon said it had not been contacted by the federal government or any other party involved in the proceedings, but was taking the complaint seriously and monitoring the trial for more details.
Bowen is expected to testify at the trial on Thursday.
Code and Dawkins told the FBI agents that Cardinals coach Rick Pitino did not know all the details of the payment scheme for playing involving Bowen.
"If you ask Rick Pitino where he knows what happened [with Bowen]he would say he does not know, "says Code. He probably does not know it. "
Dawkins replied, "He knows it, he does not know everything … plausible denial."
During Sood's testimony, US Assistant Attorney Noah Solowiejczyk asked him if he thought Pitino was aware of the plan to pay Bowen's father.
"I think he knew something, but not everything," Sood said.
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