Renegade Miami football booster spells out illicit benefits to players

[deminks]

http://sports.yahoo.com/investigations/news?slug=cr-renegade_miami_booster_details_illicit_benefits_081611

KEARNY, N.J. – A University of Miami booster, incarcerated for his role in a $930 million Ponzi scheme, has told Yahoo! Sports he provided thousands of impermissible benefits to at least 72 athletes from 2002 through 2010.

In 100 hours of jailhouse interviews during Yahoo! Sports’ 11-month investigation, Hurricanes booster Nevin Shapiro described a sustained, eight-year run of rampant NCAA rule-breaking, some of it with the knowledge or direct participation of at least seven coaches from the Miami football and basketball programs. At a cost that Shapiro estimates in the millions of dollars, he said his benefits to athletes included but were not limited to cash, prostitutes, entertainment in his multimillion-dollar homes and yacht, paid trips to high-end restaurants and nightclubs, jewelry, bounties for on-field play (including bounties for injuring opposing players), travel and, on one occasion, an abortion.

Also among the revelations were damning details of Shapiro’s co-ownership of a sports agency – Axcess Sports & Entertainment – for nearly his entire tenure as a Hurricanes booster. The same agency that signed two first-round picks from Miami, Vince Wilfork and Jon Beason, and recruited dozens of others while Shapiro was allegedly providing cash and benefits to players. In interviews with federal prosecutors, Shapiro said many of those same players were also being funneled cash and benefits by his partner at Axcess, then-NFL agent and current UFL commissioner Michael Huyghue. Shapiro said he also made payments on behalf of Axcess, including a $50,000 lump sum to Wilfork, as a recruiting tool for the agency.

In an effort to substantiate the booster’s claims, Yahoo! Sports audited approximately 20,000 pages of financial and business records from his bankruptcy case, more than 5,000 pages of cell phone records, multiple interview summaries tied to his federal Ponzi case, and more than 1,000 photos. Nearly 100 interviews were also conducted with individuals living in six different states. In the process, documents, photos and 21 human sources – including nine former Miami players or recruits, and one former coach – corroborated multiple parts of Shapiro’s rule-breaking.

(end snip)

Holy moly.

[htuttle]

1. When did Yahoo! Sports hire some (gasp) JOURNALISTS?

Frankly, I find that fact more surprising then the graft detailed in the story. I always assumed that sort of thing was going on.

[Blue_Tires]

3. Actually, Yahoo sports has been doing some great investigative stuff

ESPN and the other big names in sports media should remember the days when they had "journalists" and not "personalities"

[leveymg]

2. At least he didn't pay the players to shave points and lose games.

The rest of the benes just seem to go along with being a pre-pro, early career varsity college jock playing commercial TV-bowl sports. Including the abortion - presumably not for the football player, himself.

[Blue_Tires]

4. If true, it doesn't shock me in the least...

So many people suspected UM was doing these things already anyway...

[sinkingfeeling]

5. Where's the NCAA to sanction U of Miami?

[The2ndWheel]

6. It circulates the money

Increases demand. Creates jobs.