The Last Temptation of Rick Pitino by Michael Sokolove

Author:Michael Sokolove
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-09-24T16:00:00+00:00

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The FBI’s probe of college basketball began by happenstance, which is not unusual. Law enforcement agents often start off in one direction, with a single suspect and a discrete set of facts, and then are led to something else—a bigger case or sometimes just a more interesting one. In this instance, they were initially looking into the business practices of Louis Martin Blazer III, known as Marty, a Pittsburgh financial advisor with a client list of professional athletes. His company, Blazer Capital, touted itself as a “concierge” firm that in addition to investment guidance took care of clients’ bill-paying, developed and managed their personal budgets, and assisted in tax preparation.

Blazer had a side interest in moviemaking, and in 2010 he began to raise money for two films, one of which was named Mafia, the Movie. He created a financial instrument related to its funding, “Mafia LLC” (a name that seems preordained to attract interest from law enforcement), but struggled to find backers.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil case against him, alleging, “To compensate for the shortfall, Blazer simply took funds from client accounts over which he had control and used the money to finance the films.” When one client protested about the unauthorized use of $550,000 and threatened legal action, Blazer, who had previously worked at Smith Barney and Merrill Lynch, returned the client’s money and took the same amount from a different client, according to the SEC complaint. The government referred to Blazer’s shuffling of funds as “Ponzi-like payments.”

This, of course, is the type of activity that, once discovered, puts an individual in serious legal jeopardy. Criminal charges followed the civil action lodged by the SEC. As a way of mitigating his peril and lessening the potential penalties and jail time, Blazer told federal agents that he could bring them a new case—evidence of criminal behavior in the world of college basketball recruiting. He turned state’s evidence and began operating as an undercover agent. “He was inserted,” the acting U.S. attorney at the time, Joon Kim, explained on the day the NCAA case was announced. In the documents filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, Blazer is referred to as “CW-1”—cooperating witness number one.

Under the direction of federal agents, Blazer secretly made audio and video recordings of his meetings with college coaches, players, and others in the college basketball universe. His phone conversations with them were recorded. He would eventually team up with an unsuspecting Dawkins, but the first person he pulled into his web was Rashan Michel, a singularly colorful figure—a former NBA referee turned bespoke tailor to players and coaches.

A whole industry has grown up around the needs of lavishly paid professional athletes. Agents and financial advisors, of course. Assistants (often family members) who live with them and attend to day-to-day household management. Nutritionists and physical trainers. Moving consultants who specialize in quickly relocating them when they are abruptly traded and find them homes in their new cities and even private schools for their children.

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