Kansas And NC State Are Now Caught Up In The FBI's College Basketball Investigation

Lauren Theisen|published: Tue 10th April, 20:22 2018

credits: Andy Lyons | source: [object Object]

A new indictment announced today in the FBI’s college basketball bribery investigation adds both Kansas and North Carolina State to the mix of involved schools that already included programs like Louisville, Miami, and Arizona.

The indictment isn’t specifically against anyone actually involved with the programs, but rather concerns three wire fraud-related charges against already indicted former Adidas executives James Gatto and Merl Code, and sports agency runner Christian Dawkins. There are further descriptions of plans by the trio to pay the families of high school athletes in exchange for those athletes attending Louisville and Miami, but there are also new mentions of Kansas and NC State in the indictment.

In the NC State section, an unnamed coach at the program is also implicated. The indictment says that Gatto and an unnamed co-conspirator funneled $40,000 to the father of an NC State recruit in 2015, so the recruit would both attend the Adidas-sponsored school and eventually sign with the company when he turned pro. The recruit initially committed without payment, but later had second thoughts about his choice. That’s where the NC State coach comes in:

At Kansas, the alleged payments are slightly greater and involve two recruits. Gatto is accused of funneling at least $90,000 to the mother of one recruit, mostly by concealing it through payments to his unnamed co-conspirators’s AAU team. The indictment also says that the legal guardian of another recruit told Gatto that payments were made by a “rival athletic apparel company,” to attend that company’s school. But because the recruit wanted to attend Kansas, and the guardian would have to repay the money if he did, the guardian asked Gatto to make payments of his own, which he said he would.

If you care, the recruits in the indictment are most probably Dennis Smith Jr. in the NC State allegations, and current Jayhawks Marcus Garrett and Silvio De Sousa. The full thing is embedded below: