Piggie Indictment Has Ramifications

Christmas came early for JaRon Rush in 1996.

There was $300 for homecoming at Pembroke Hill High. Halloween? Two hundred dollars more. Then some spending money, $150, for a weekend in Lawrence, at the University of Kansas.

What appear to be minor details of a Kansas City, Mo., teenager’s social life are at the heart of a high-profile federal case against former summer-league basketball coach Myron C. Piggie. The fallout could include a UCLA loss of more than $60,000 in NCAA tournament revenue.

An 11-count indictment charged that Piggie, a former janitor and a convicted crack dealer, defrauded UCLA and three other institutions by paying the players, thereby endangering their amateur status and eligibility.

The alleged scheme started with Piggie’s payments to some of his summer-league players, which would make them ineligible for college scholarships. By undercutting the players’ amateur status, the scheme allegedly defrauded the schools. Beyond the $35,500 in payments to the players, the indictment said Piggie defrauded the schools, which gave out nearly $100,000 in scholarship money to athletes who were ineligible.

As the Piggie case unfolds, it has become apparent that there could be further financial ramifications for the schools. In particular, UCLA could be forced to forfeit as much as $66,600, a portion of its earnings from the 1999 basketball tournament.

Earlier, the federal investigation sparked an NCAA probe and the suspensions of several players. JaRon Rush of UCLA paid the biggest price, missing 24 games and returning shortly before the tournament. Now, the investigation--which also affected Duke, Missouri and Oklahoma State--and Piggie’s upcoming summer trial are fodder for law schools classes around the country.

Legal experts have differing opinions on the merits of the case. Drake University Law School’s dean, C. Peter Goplerud III, called a criminal prosecution based on interference with an athlete’s amateur standing “flimsy.”

But a former federal prosecutor, Peter S. Spivack, said: “It’s definitely a viable theory. . . . You’ve got a situation where the schools were laying out real money.”

U.S. Attorney Stephen L. Hill Jr. declined to discuss the case with The Times. A spokesman for Hill said the refusal was because of a commentary written by Times sports editor Bill Dwyre in December 1999 that was “very disparaging.” Hill’s office did not return phone calls to Dwyre for the commentary.

Hill, in announcing the charges at a news conference April 13 in Kansas City, said: “This is not a case of $50, a pair of shoes and a prom corsage. He [Piggie] paid these players with the expectation that he would be paid later.”

The alleged payments were at least $35,550 to five student-athletes. One of them, Korleone Young, a second-round draft choice of the Detroit Pistons in 1998, bypassed college. Of the other four, Rush received the most money ($17,000), according to the indictment.

“Everyone knows it wouldn’t have been touched if it didn’t involve sports and college athletics,” said Spivack, who is now at the Washington-based firm of Hogan and Hartson. “It’s as clear as a bell.”

Said Goplerud: “I was chatting with a colleague today about this. We’re concerned about a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t have anything better to do than to go looking for ways to prosecute people who have tampered with collegiate athletes’ eligibility.”

This road has been traveled before with a different twist. In 1989, the Justice Department charged agents Norby Walters and Lloyd Bloom with racketeering, mail fraud and conspiracy, accusing them of signing collegiate athletes to pro sports contracts before the expiration of their eligibility, defrauding seven universities.

The athletes signed documents certifying they were amateurs, and their contracts were postdated, so they could remain eligible.

Walters and Bloom were found guilty after a five-week trial, but the conviction was overturned on appeal by the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1990.

“Part of the problem in Walters [case] was the prosecutor was arguing that the use of the mail was central to the scheme, and the court was very dubious of that because they found it was unlikely that Walters would even know that the university would use the mail,” UCLA law professor Steve Derian said.

In regard to Piggie, the contact and payments were made before the athletes were enrolled in school. The cash payments, sometimes packaged in Nike shoe boxes, were made secretly to the players and Piggie developed cover stories for the players in the event the NCAA learned of the payments, according to the indictment.

Rush mailed his national letter of intent, as did the others. The indictment stated that Piggie mailed or caused the mailings of letters of intent from JaRon Rush, Kareem Rush and Andre Williams to their respective schools, and he engaged in an interstate telephone call with Corey Maggette. Later, the players also submitted “false and fraudulent Student-Athlete Statements” to the schools, certifying they had not received payments to participate in basketball.

“Here the focus on the letter of intent is arguably different,” Derian said. “Whether it will make a legal difference to the court that ultimately considers it is uncertain. It’s more plausible, given the problem the 7th Circuit had with Walters.”

The final damage to UCLA probably won’t be known for months. The Bruins already lost four games by four points or fewer when Rush was out, had to go without a key reserve/potential starter for 24 games, and now may be forced to forfeit thousands of dollars over something for which they were not held accountable.

The last unresolved issue is whether the school will have to repay money earned from the 1999 NCAA tournament, because, unknowingly or not, it used a player who, it was later found, should have been ineligible. It does not matter that UCLA said the first it heard of possible violations related to Rush was nine months later, at which time Rush was immediately suspended.

According to NCAA bylaws, “When an ineligible student-athlete participates in an NCAA championship and the student-athlete or the institution knew or had reason to know of the ineligibility, the NCAA president may withhold” a portion of the earnings.

On Jan. 11, Rush admitted that he knew it was against the rules when he took money from agent Jerome Stanley, a charge Stanley denies but that the school and the NCAA accept as fact. Stanley made four $50 payments to Rush in a parking lot at UCLA during the 1998-99 academic year, the indictment said.

At stake is a portion of what the Pacific 10 said is the $74,000 for the Bruins’ single-game appearance in the 1999 tournament, a loss to Detroit Mercy. The rules include a cap at 90% of that amount--which would be $66,600--but others familiar with recent cases said the trend is for the NCAA to usually go with about 45%.

UCLA must first submit its report on that matter, separate from the work it did on Rush’s eligibility case. There is no timetable for completion and, according to the NCAA, no deadline. The Championship/Competition Cabinet, which oversees such matters, is next scheduled to meet in July.

Beyond that, despite some vague references in the media to the contrary, the Bruins said the indictment has not prompted a new NCAA investigation. Athletic Director Pete Dalis, seeking clarification, spoke with NCAA vice president David Price and confirmed there were no plans to reopen the Rush case.

“There is nothing new whatsoever,” Dalis said. “. . . I knew there was no issue there. It’s not a matter of saying we’re happy that nothing is going on because we knew there was nothing going on.”

Piggie remains incarcerated because of threats against potential witnesses. His attorney, Kimberley Kellogg Gepford, dismissed the threats and said she will attempt to have him released this week on bond. The trial is scheduled for June, but Gepford is expecting it to begin in August, hinting at continuing revelations.

“We deny it [the allegations],” she said. “And we will be strenuously fighting it by motion process and trial. He’s not guilty of any federal offenses.”