[4] On September 27, 2017, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced the arrest of 10 individuals, including assistant coaches Anthony Bland, Chuck Person, Emanuel Richardson, and Lamont Evans and Adidas executive James Gatto, on various corruption and fraud charges including bribery, money laundering, and wire fraud.
[1][2][3] The schools implicated in the initial announcement were Arizona, Auburn, Louisville, Miami, Oklahoma State, South Carolina, and Southern California (USC).
[9][10] The discovery of corruption in basketball stemmed from an investigation of Pittsburgh-based financial planner Marty Blazer by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
In 2016, the SEC charged Blazer with wire fraud and accused him of embezzling over $2 million from several professional athletes to invest in movie projects and finance Ponzi schemes.
As part of a plea agreement with the Southern District U.S. Attorney's office, he agreed to become an FBI informant, and would later plead guilty to reduced charges.
The university had been unable to determine whether Pearl had been involved in any violations of law or NCAA rules because the FBI had seized his computers and cell phones as part of its investigation.
[23] At the time of the announcement, the Louisville men's basketball program was facing major NCAA sanctions stemming from an earlier sex scandal, which included vacating the 2013 national championship.
About a month before the scandal broke, Louisville, which has been Adidas' flagship college athletic program since 2016, signed a 10-year, $160 million extension to its then-current apparel contract with the company.
[24] The day after the complaints were unsealed, CBS News, followed by many other media outlets, reported that "Coach-2" was Louisville head coach Rick Pitino.
[29] Two other five-star prospects for 2018 who had placed Louisville within their final choices, Moses Brown and Romeo Langford removed the Cardinals from their lists in the wake of the scandal.
On the same day, NBC News reported that these new documents directly linked Pitino to the alleged scheme to pay Bowen's family.
[33] The April 2018 indictments specifically charge Dawkins and Adidas consultant Merl Code with conspiring with Gatto to commit wire fraud and pay the aforementioned $100,000 to Bowen's family.
On the same day Evans was fired, Antwann Jones, a guard ranked by ESPN as one of the top 50 players in the recruiting class of 2018, rescinded a verbal commitment he had made to the program less than two weeks earlier.
[42] This resignation came after the school uncovered that Baker had accepted bribes to steer one of Alabama's incoming freshman players toward financial advisor Rashan Michel.
On September 26, federal prosecutors in New York announced charges of fraud and corruption against USC assistant coach Tony Bland.
[47] After playing in only a few games in the 2017–18 season, on January 15, 2018, sophomore point guard De'Anthony Melton was indefinitely suspended as a result of the investigation.
[50] If he were implicated in this case, it would have potentially hurt Ayton's chances of finishing out the rest of his season with Arizona, as well as result in him entering the 2018 NBA draft earlier than anticipated, similar to that of De'Anthony Melton.
[52] However, Ayton and his family have maintained they did not earn any monetary benefits to attend Arizona, with further information suggesting that Miller's calls to Dawkins were related to the recruitment of another player instead.
Because the younger O'Neal signed a nonbinding financial aid agreement instead of a formal letter of intent, he did not need a release from Arizona to choose a new destination,[56] and he would commit to UCLA three days later.
[4] The April 2018 indictments specifically charge that Gatto was involved in a scheme to funnel $40,000 to Smith's family in October 2015 in exchange for signing with NC State.
[4] The school launched an internal investigation into possible ties with the scandal, with head coach Mark Turgeon denying that he or any of his staff members had any involvement with the agency.
[58] The April 2018 indictments peripherally linked Maryland and its current apparel provider, Under Armour, to the scandal in a completely separate context, although neither was explicitly named in those documents.
According to the documents, the guardian told "CC-3" that he had received illicit payments from individuals connected with Under Armour in exchange for De Sousa's commitment to Maryland.
That would result in him later rescinding his collegiate entry altogether, instead opting to begin a professional basketball career early, starting with the Sydney Kings in Australia.
Gatto and the coach of an Adidas-sponsored AAU team were alleged to have given at least $90,000 to the mother of a KU recruit between October 2016 and November 2017 in exchange for the player's commitment to the school.
Pope was withheld from the team's February 24 game against San Jose State[61] while the school launched an internal investigation into the allegations.
[4] The mother of then-current Michigan State star Miles Bridges reportedly received several hundred dollars in advances from ASM.
Bridges was temporarily ruled ineligible because of the dinner, but his eligibility was restored on February 24, just in time to play for the Spartans' regular season finale at Wisconsin.
Bridges made a $40 contribution (the approximate value of his family members' meals at the Dawkins meeting) to a charity of his choice as part of the reinstatement process.
In addition to the aforementioned Knox and Ibeh, the following then-current and former NCAA players were listed in the ASM documents in this context:[4] On March 31, 2020, a documentary based on the scandal, titled The Scheme, was released by HBO.