Did Fan Pay for UNLV Reserve’s Car? : NCAA: Documents show former Las Vegas businessman provided money to lease vehicle for Hudson.

A former Las Vegas businessman who has spent the last year trying to expose alleged irregularities on the part of University of Nevada Las Vegas administrators, violated NCAA rules by making car payments for a UNLV basketball player, according to documents filed with a Nevada state agency.

Lloyd E. Percell, an outspoken supporter of Jerry Tarkanian in the former UNLV basketball coach’s ongoing feud with school administrators, made car payments totaling more than $1,000 for Eldridge Hudson during the Rebels’ run to the 1987 Final Four, according to documents filed with the Nevada Department of Commerce as part of a consumer affairs matter.

Copies of the documents were obtained by The Times.

A former Carson High School player, Hudson was a senior reserve on the 1986-87 UNLV team that lost to Indiana in the national semifinals at New Orleans.

The arrangement between Percell and Hudson was an apparent violation of NCAA rules that prohibit coaches or boosters from providing athletes with benefits not available to students in general.

The arrangement was not documented by the NCAA during its most recent investigation of Tarkanian’s program, according to sources familiar with the inquiry.

Although the payments are technically outside the NCAA’s four-year statute of limitations, they could create a problem for UNLV because the NCAA’s investigation, initiated in 1987, remains unresolved. NCAA rules allow the organization to hold a school accountable for all violations occurring within four years of the start of an investigation.

A major violation involving a player who participated in the NCAA tournament could have serious repercussions for the player’s school.

If the NCAA can document that the player received an improper benefit before or at the time of his participation in the tournament, the school could be considered guilty of having used an ineligible player and could be forced to return tournament revenue.

Tarkanian, coach of the San Antonio Spurs, last year resigned his position at UNLV, effective at the end of the 1991-92 season. He later attempted to withdraw the resignation, claiming that UNLV President Robert Maxson and other school administrators had conspired to damage the basketball program.

Throughout the controversy, Percell has been prominent among those supporting Tarkanian’s cause.

He has written letters to Maxson, members of the University of Nevada System Board of Regents and others, chastising them for failing to support the coach.

He also has spent much of the last year conducting research that, in his view, reveals impropriety in the way UNLV portrays itself academically and in the way the UNLV Foundation, a university fund-raising group, handles its finances--views widely held by Tarkanian’s supporters. Maxson and other school officials deny irregularities exist in either area.

A committee of Nevada state legislators and a Clark County (Nev.) grand jury are conducting separate inquiries into Tarkanian’s departure from UNLV as well as other issues involving the school, including the activities of the foundation. Percell has appeared before both panels.

A resident of Las Vegas for nearly 30 years before retiring and moving to Del Mar, Percell was named in the letter of official inquiry sent by the NCAA to UNLV in December of 1990, according to sources familiar with the NCAA investigation.

In the letter, which asked the school to respond to a series of alleged rules violations, the NCAA sought to know the arrangement through which Hudson lived in Percell’s Las Vegas home during the player’s time at UNLV, according to the sources, who asked not to be identified.

But the NCAA did not, according to the sources, develop information linking Percell to Hudson’s car.

According to documents filed with the Nevada Department of Commerce, Consumer Affairs Division, Percell made payments on a Mazda RX7 leased by Hudson in January of 1987.

In a written response to a complaint lodged by Hudson over the lease, Riviera Automotive Leasing of Van Nuys said that the first lease payment on the car had been made with a check drawn on the account of Executive Energy Corp., a Las Vegas company owned at the time by Percell.

When the check bounced, the leasing company had the vehicle repossessed, the leasing company’s account said.

Percell, identifying himself as Hudson’s “adviser,” then contacted the leasing company and offered to make good on the first payment and provide three more payments in a lump sum, according to the leasing company’s account.

Included in the account is a letter dated March 11, 1987, from an L.A. attorney, Michael T. McElvaney, to the company confirming that Percell’s son, Rick, had tendered a cashier’s check for $1,300 to bring Hudson’s payments up to date and obtain the release of the car.

According to university records, Hudson provided Lloyd Percell with complimentary passes to UNLV basketball games 15 times during the 1986-87 season.

In a recent interview, Percell said he met Hudson through a mutual friend and rented a room in his home to the player during the 1986-87 season.

Percell said he occasionally dealt with Riviera Automotive Leasing when the company’s representatives called his home, trying to locate Hudson. But he said he never made lease payments for Hudson. He called the leasing company’s account “absolutely in error.”

Asked why the leasing company’s account would mention a check from Executive Energy Corp., Percell speculated that Hudson might have provided cash for the lease payment to one of Percell’s secretaries who, in turn, would have written the check to the leasing company.

Repeated efforts to contact Hudson were unsuccessful.

In a story about the UNLV basketball program that appeared in Time magazine in 1989, Hudson was quoted as saying: “Once you get out on the floor, it’s a job and you expect to get paid. If a kid is busting his ass on the court, if somebody wants to buy him a car, let him have it.”

The Time story reported that Hudson drove a Mazda RX7 while he was at UNLV. According to the story, Hudson’s only reply, when asked how he could afford the car, was “easy.”

McElvaney, the lawyer whose letter was included in the leasing company’s account, said: “I vaguely recollect having become involved in that (matter). If the letter bears my signature, I’m sure it’s accurate.”

Percell also said he has no ties to Tarkanian or the UNLV basketball program.

He said his study of UNLV’s academic and fund-raising programs--a project in which, he said, he has collected “thousands and thousands” of documents on the UNLV Foundation alone--began after members of the UNLV faculty, aware of his interest in the school’s direction, requested his assistance. He declined to name the faculty members.

“I have 10 grandchildren,” he said. “The two oldest were getting ready to go to UNLV. (His research) started out as a family concern. My grandchildren have received scholarship offers to go other places. But I’m so involved (in the research) now, I can’t walk away.”

When his research is completed, Percell said, he probably will provide the documents to the panels currently studying the circumstances surrounding Tarkanian’s resignation.

Tarkanian said he has met Percell on only one occasion and knows little of his activities.

“He is very intelligent. That’s all I know,” Tarkanian said. “I’ve seen some letters he has written that were amazingly intelligent. But I don’t know him.”

Percell’s letter-writing campaign suggests a stronger connection to Tarkanian’s program, however.

Only weeks after the coach submitted his resignation last summer, Percell wrote Dan Klaich, a member of the University of Nevada System Board of Regents, identifying himself as a “Rebel fan” and expressing displeasure at the way Tarkanian was treated by UNLV administrators.

By not standing behind Tarkanian, Percell wrote, administrators had destroyed the university’s “greatest asset.”

Percell wrote Carolyn Sparks, the board’s chairwoman, last year to make the same point. In that letter, he described his ties to the UNLV basketball program, saying he counseled Rebel players, provided them with meals and allowed them to stay in his home.

Percell also wrote Father Theodore Hesburgh, former president of Notre Dame and co-chairman of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, after Hesburgh spoke publicly in support of Maxson in March.

To Hesburgh, Percell wrote: “May you deal with God directly for the wrongful shame you cast upon the Tarkanian family.”

The NCAA informed UNLV in October of 1987 that the school’s basketball program was the subject of a preliminary inquiry. The inquiry stemmed from published reports outlining possible rules violations in the recruiting of former New York high school star Lloyd Daniels.

The inquiry, which has resulted in charges of rules violations in nearly 40 areas, remains unresolved because of litigation over a Nevada statute, signed into law in April of 1991, requiring NCAA enforcement proceedings to conform to standards of legal due process--a cause long championed by Tarkanian.

Mark Jones, an NCAA director of enforcement who has supervised the investigation of UNLV, declined comment on the case or Percell’s dealings with Hudson.

Speaking generally, however, Jones said the NCAA evaluates any new information that might have some bearing on a pending investigation.

“The question is: How much does (the new information) impact (the investigation)?” he said. “At minimum, we would advise the institution to deal with the (information).”

Times staff writer Elliott Almond contributed to this story.