University of Michigan basketball scandal
The violations principally involved payments booster Martin made to several players to launder money from an illegal gambling operation.
Four eventual professional basketball players—Taylor, Chris Webber, Robert Traylor and Louis Bullock—were discovered to have borrowed a total of $616,000 from Martin.
[2] Martin was reportedly returning to Ann Arbor from Detroit with Taylor, Cleaves, Bullock, Ron Oliver, Robert Traylor, and Willie Mitchell after a party that included drugs, strippers and alcohol.
[1][6] Martin, a retired electrician who worked at Ford Motor Company's River Rouge Complex,[7][2] provided all the players with money.
[...] With access to every part of the plant and all its potential bettors, Martin supplemented his electrician's salary with commissions he earned collecting bets.
Slowly he climbed the numbers-runner ladder, using his position at the plant and the force of his personality to make him a natural choice as heir apparent to the whole operation.
[9] Taylor, Traylor, Bullock, and Cleaves (who eventually signed with rival Michigan State) all went on to be drafted by National Basketball Association (NBA) teams.
The violations that were published were that Martin was present at a recruit's home during a visit by head coach Fisher; and that he'd given a Michigan player a birthday cake.
[1] Martin befriended Perry Watson, coach for Southwestern High School of Detroit, and provided gifts to the team's players.
[12] In September 1996, athletic director Joe Roberson learned that during the previous month Martin had tried to place deposits on apartments for Traylor and Louis Bullock.
[5] The March 1997 Big Ten report showed that official University phone records documented that the coaching staff called Martin's home 39 times.
Martin paid $280,000 to Webber from 1988 (when he was a ninth-grader at Detroit Country Day School) to 1993 (his sophomore year at Michigan, after which he turned pro).
[15][16] In April 1999, the FBI and IRS raided several Detroit-area homes to stop a numbers game operation in the area's Ford plants.
[1] In the course of a federal investigation, evidence turned up that Martin had given cash payments and other benefits to several Michigan players and Detroit-area high school prospects starting in the early 1980s.
[25][26] He and his son, Carlton, backed out in May 2000, preferring to take their chances at trial due to the likelihood of light punishment for first-time offenders.
According to the indictment, Martin made illicit loans totalling $616,000 to Webber, Taylor, Bullock and Traylor to launder money from an illegal numbers game at Detroit–area auto plants.
[33] Martin, his wife, Hilda, and Clarence Malvo were under federal indictment for conspiracy to engage in illegal gambling and could have faced up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.
[36] In September 2002, Webber was indicted on five charges, including obstruction of justice and lying to a federal grand jury, for having misrepresented his relationship with Martin.
[38] Martin pleaded guilty to running an illegal lottery at the Ford Motors plant he worked at to provide proceeds for the players.
[40] In the 2000 grand jury investigation, Webber had been asked about whether his off-campus apartment rent had been paid by Martin and whether he had received spending money, jewelry, clothing or a stereo.
[34] Malvo, who confessed to taking bets and paying off winning wagers for Martin, pleaded guilty April 8, 2002 to lying before a federal grand jury.
In July 2003, on the day before jury selection in the case was due to begin, Webber pleaded guilty to the reduced charge of criminal contempt in order to avoid a possible jail sentence.
The deal was subject to a discretionary fine and possible classification of the infraction as a felony by the United States District Court Judge Nancy Edmunds who would rule in September 2003.
[41] On November 7, 2002; Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman and athletic director Bill Martin announced that the school was imposing sanctions of its own on the basketball program.
Several players not implicated in the scandal continue to be listed among the school's honorees such as Rob Pelinka (Walter Byers Scholarship, 1993), Juwan Howard and Jalen Rose (All-American, 1994) and Jerod Ward (Big Ten All-Tournament Team, 1998).
[43] Michigan finished the 2002–2003 season with a 17–13 record but sat out both that year's NCAA and NIT tournaments due to the self-imposed postseason ban.
Infractions committee chairman Thomas Yeager, who had come very close to imposing the "death penalty" on the University of Alabama football program a few months earlier, called the Martin/Michigan affair "one of the three or four most egregious violations of NCAA bylaws" ever.
In September 2003, the NCAA reversed its decision to add a second year of postseason ineligibility after hearing an appeal by the University; the Wolverines went on to become champions of the 2004 National Invitation Tournament.
DCD conducted its own investigation, then called a press conference on March 1, 2004, to announce there was no "credible evidence" Webber's amateur status had been violated.
He did not meet with the Michigan basketball team or staff, but despite this, head coach John Beilein stated that "I think it was a great step in the right direction that he was here.
