NCAA Football (2012-13 season)

[MarquisDeSade]

at the NCAA

What'd they do?

[Kevrock]

CORAL GABLES, Fla. -- The NCAA said Wednesday its enforcement staff worked with the defense attorney for former Miami booster Nevin Shapiro to improperly obtain information through a bankruptcy proceeding that did not involve the sports governing body.

A person familiar with the decision to use Shapiro's attorney told Schad that no NCAA officials ever sat in on the bankruptcy depositions, but confirmed that the officials suggested questions Shapiro's attorney could ask. The source said the NCAA's in-house counsel and vice president of enforcement approved the arrangement.

Another source familiar with the NCAA's concerns in the matter said it is neither common nor acceptable for the NCAA's enforcement staff to retain an attorney representing a person at the center of an investigation to ask questions in unrelated depositions that could aid the NCAA. That behavior, according to the source, could be deemed as an attempt to defraud the court, and the attorney would not be considered an independent party to the NCAA's investigation.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/8872992/ncaa-reveals-found-improper-conduct-investigation-miami-hurricanes

[HalfSmokes]

this gets better every day

The woman whose picture was used to create Manti Te'o's fake girlfriend has been identified, but the voice of the woman who had hours of late-night phone calls with the Notre Dame star linebacker has remained silent. Turns out that's because it reportedly was a man.

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8875990/lawyer-ronaiah-tuiasosopo-was-voice-talking-manti-teo

[spidernat]

It was Tuiasosopo. They have phone records to show that Teo was actually on the phone for all the hours he claimed. What they haven't admitted to is that Teo was on the phone with Tuiasosopo and he knew it was Tuiasosopo. They are probably gay lovers. They probably had a three way gay conference call with PANatsFan at some point.

[Vega]

They are probably gay lovers.

I think that may end up being the case, and if so, he should just admit it. He'll get some hate directed at him, but as the first out big name athlete, he'd get massive support as well.

[Lintyfresh85]

I think her "death" date is when Te'o broke up with him.

Never changed his story because Tuia probably was blackmailing him into the gf story, or Tuia would out him.

[Kevrock]

NCAA botches Miami investigation: Your rules are not law, Mark Emmert

By Robert Wheel

Hello, non-lawyer friends. By now you've heard that the NCAA is conducting an internal investigation after discovering that its enforcement staff worked with Nevin Shapiro's attorneys to depose witnesses on their behalf. In case you're a non-lawyer you might not know what any of that means, I'm going to conduct a Q&A with my old buddy the fake non-lawyer to explain everything to you.

Q: So what did the NCAA enforcement staff do?

A: NCAA enforcement staff worked with Nevin Shapiro's attorney to depose witnesses with questions that were not related to his bankruptcy case but were related to the NCAA's investigation of Miami.

Q: Wait, what is a deposition?

A: A deposition is out-of-court oral testimony that can be used in a trial. Perhaps the most famous deposition was President Clinton's in the Paula Jones civil suit, in which he said, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."

Q: He was impeached for lying under oath. So I guess that means you're under oath when you're testifying at a deposition?

A. That's correct.

Q: So why was Nevin Shapiro getting deposed?

A: It was to gather evidence for his bankruptcy case. When you declare bankruptcy, all the lawsuits against you are heard by a bankruptcy court. One of the disputes must have required testimony from people who could also testify about Shaprio's activities with the Miami football program.

Q: So how the hell did the NCAA ask questions about their investigation at a bankruptcy proceeding?

A: Your guess is good as mine. While we don't know the exact nature of the questions asked, NCAA president Mark Emmert admitted that NCAA investigators improperly used Shapiro's attorney to ask questions about NCAA rule violations under oath.

Q: Why did Shapiro's attorney let the NCAA do that?

A: My guess is that Shapiro directed her to help out the NCAA as part of his ex-jocksniffer vendetta against Miami. Shapiro's criminal lawyer, Maria Elena Perez, appears to be more Saul Goodman than Atticus Finch, so she went along with the scheme.

Q: How did Emmert find out that his investigators were doing this?

A: Perez sent the NCAA an invoice. Which is really weird, because if you work as a lawyer for someone in bankruptcy, your fees are paid before their creditors receive any money.

Q: That doesn't seem fair.

A: Well, a) the only way you'll get attorneys to represent bankrupt people is by allowing them to get paid for their services and b) lawyers wrote the bankruptcy laws, so we get to put in stuff like that.

Of course, you need to submit an invoice to the court in order to get paid. And while Perez represented Shaprio in some matters before the bankruptcy court, she never submitted an invoice to them. Instead, she submitted one to the NCAA. Again, competence doesn't seem to be her thing.

I'd wager that Perez, who had trouble making timely motions in the past, forgot to submit an invoice to the court in time and thus sent a bill to the NCAA, exposing this whole scheme. Leave it to an incompetent South Florida lawyer to endanger the investigation.

Q: Endanger the investigation? You need to explain why this is that big of a deal.

A: Because the NCAA should not have the power to force people to answer questions under oath. We only force people to answer questions under oath (which means they could be thrown in jail for perjury if they lie) when it concerns someone disobeying a law. Laws are passed by legislatures that are elected by the people. We don't want people to go to jail for lying about breaking rules that were made by a dictator.

Q: Are you calling Mark Emmert a dictator?

A: Well if he ran for election, he'd do worse than Mondale. Nobody should go to jail for disobeying one of his edicts. That's what's so galling about what the NCAA did. They're a bunch of plutocratic pricks, but at least they only come up with made-up rules and not actual laws. But in getting Perez to ask questions under oath, they acted as if their stupid little rules had the force of law.

The NCAA wants to have the privileges of government without any of the responsibilities of governing. The last time I wrote about the NCAA's galling behavior in the Miami case I wrote:

I don't think the NCAA needs to give players the rights that citizens have with respect to their government; I'm just illustrating how due process is tied to the right to earn money.

Well if your edicts are going to have the force of law, as they did when Shapiro's attorneys asked about them under oath, then you better goddamn well give people the same rights that they do against their government. The NCAA doesn't have due process or elections. It is, as I said in that article, a banana republic.

That's what makes this so bad; the NCAA used the United States judiciary to make their stupid regulations the rule of law, even though they run roughshod over the people that they govern. Let me put this in bold and all caps so the world can see it loud and clear:

AN NCAA INVESTIGATOR WANTED TO BE ABLE TO SEND SOMEONE TO JAIL FOR NOT ANSWERING QUESTIONS ABOUT HIS BULLcrap RULES

This is America, not North freaking Korea. If someone wants to pass a law that sends you to jail, then he or she better well have to face your peers at the ballot box. The NCAA basically tried to subvert democracy. This is easily the worst thing that it has ever done.

Q: Holy crap! How will everyone be penalized?

A: Well, Shapiro's lawyer will probably be disbarred. A court has already said she's incompetent, and now she's crooked too. Dave Barry articles have taught me that the bar for being a lawyer in South Florida is set pretty low, but this should be the end of the line for her legal career.

The NCAA investigators who used Shapiro's lawyers could face criminal penalties. They could be charged with obstruction of justice for interfering with a bankruptcy proceeding. Or they could be held in contempt of court, which allows judges broad discretion to penalize people who interfere with court matters. An NCAA employee could go to jail for his actions during the Miami investigation.

And then there's the NCAA, which could get sued by Miami for fraud. Fraud means you lied or deceived someone for your own gain, and the NCAA sure as hell did that when it used a criminal defense lawyer to ask people questions about infractions of its rules under oath. Now, fraud probably isn't a crime in this instance, but it sure as hell is a civil offense.

If you ask your local trial attorney what he thinks about fraud lawsuits, you'll see a Cheshire cat grin come across his face. Why? Because fraud is an intentional tort. Typically torts publish negligence, like if you hit someone while you were driving too fast. But when someone intentionally causes harm in a tort case (i.e. fraud or assault), then courts get a lot more liberal with damages, as we want to penalize people for causing harm on purpose.

Q: So Miami could take the NCAA to the cleaners?

A: Oh hell yes. Even if the actual damages aren't that great (for example, due to ACC rules Miami actually makes more money when they don't go to a bowl), the prospect of a fraud lawsuit is terrifying. At the very least, a suit by Miami would proceed to the discovery stage. And that means Miami could force Mark Emmert to testify, under oath, what exactly he did to take them down.

Of course, it'll never get to that. Miami has just as much to lose from protracted litigation. Likely the NCAA will settle and Miami will probably avoid punishment.

Q: Well that doesn't seem fair.

A: The NCAA will still lose money. And you know who hates it when companies lose money due to incompetence? Boards of directors. The NCAA board of directors should force Emmert to explain why he runs a tinker toy operation that has bungled investigations into USC, UCLA and Miami alone in the past two years.

Mark Emmert wants the privilege of making the law. That means someone has to exercise the right to throw his incompetent ass out of office.

Sorry for the Colander, but werth it IMO. Down with the NCAA.

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2013/1/24/3907888/ncaa-miami-investigation-scandal

[Smithian]

[Smithian]

But no one hates Arkansas. They're irrelevant.

[spidernat]

(Image removed from quote.)

[Vega]

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/01/24/katie-couric-asks-manti-teo-if-hes-gay-his-answer-speaks-volumes/

[DPMOmaha]

According to Michael Roth, who was a star pitcher for South Carolina who's won two CWS titles recently, this isn't an uncommon thing.

http://michaelroth29.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/true-life-my-teammate-was-catfished/#comments

[Kevrock]

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/01/24/katie-couric-asks-manti-teo-if-hes-gay-his-answer-speaks-volumes/

That's a pretty crappy article.

[Lintyfresh85]

UVA just signed up to play Oregon at UVA this coming September. It'll be a blood bath... but I can't pass up the opportunity to see Oregon play in person.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

It'll be interesting what sort of unis they show up in.  Maybe a duck helmet, beak forward, with a white spot or two down the back of the shirt falling on a Cavalier.

[Vega]

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8896921/ronaiah-tuiasosopo-dr-phil-mcgraw-voice-manti-teo-not-it

[Lintyfresh85]

I wonder how much Te'o paid him to say all that.

[Kevrock]

People have come out and recognized the voice as Tuiasosopo's friend or cousin or something. It wasn't his voice, he's just trying to take the fall.

But really, I don't care. Why is this still getting play? The NCAA has once again been exposed as the corrupt beast that it is and that was only news for a couple hours.

[mitlen]

The Te'o thing is gettin' curiouser and curiouser.

Kevrock:  "Why is this still getting play? "

+1    ...   but we all know why  ...   $

[spidernat]

I wonder how much Te'o paid him to say all that.

 

People have come out and recognized the voice as Tuiasosopo's friend or cousin or something. It wasn't his voice, he's just trying to take the fall.

No crap? I didn't hear that. So perhaps Linty is correct and Tuiasosopo is taking the fall.

[Kevrock]

Last week, relatives of Tuiasosopo's female cousin, Tino Tuiasosopo, told the New York Post that they were certain it was her voice on at least one of the taped phone conversations. And after Te'o told Couric he believed the voice of Kekua was that of a woman, ABC's "Good Morning America" sent the tapes to four audio experts, who all agreed it was a woman.

[Kevrock]

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8897280/deer-antler-salesman-saw-alabama-players-use-product

[hammondsnats]

another good recruiting class for MD ... let's hope Edsall and company turn it around this year. 

[hammondsnats]

One helluva class.  Congrats to Edsall/Locksley/staff and to the kids.

Changing my tune about the direction this team is heading in. 

[Terpfan76]

One helluva class.  Congrats to Edsall/Locksley/staff and to the kids.

Changing my tune about the direction this team is heading in. 

A little late to the party, but you're more than welcome to join the future fun. Terps fans rejoice!