Thursday, March 28, 2024

NCAA Suspends Rick Pitino 5 Games over Prostitute Scandal, Louisville Put on Probation

Rick Pitino and Katina Powell
Rick Pitino and Katina Powell

*Louisville men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino will be suspended for the first five ACC games in 2017-18 for failing to monitor his program during an alleged sex-for-pay scandal, and the program will be on probation for four years, the Division I Committee on Infractions announced Thursday.

Allegations about the program famously came to light when Katina Powell, the self-described former escort at the center of the scandal, published her book, “Breaking Cardinal Rules: Basketball and the Escort Queen,” in 2015.

The book detailed how she and her associates had accepted invites and compensation from former assistant Andre McGee to attend parties for more than a dozen recruits at Billy Minardi Hall, where they danced and had sex with the some of the young men.

Powell and McGee will not be criminally charged after a grand jury in Jefferson County, Kentucky, declined to return an indictment against either because of the lack of sufficient credible evidence.

The NCAA also issued “a vacation of basketball records in which student-athletes competed while ineligible from December 2010 and July 2014,” which would have Louisville giving up its 2012-13 national championship. The NCAA said the school must provide a list of games impacted by the decision within 45 days.

“Without dispute, NCAA rules do not allow institutional staff members to arrange for stripteases and sex acts for prospects, enrolled student-athletes and/or those who accompany them to campus,” the panel said in its decision.

The NCAA ruled Pitino “violated NCAA head coach responsibility rules” by failing to monitor the activities of McGee, who is alleged to have hired strippers to entertain players and recruits.

McGee received a 10-year show cause penalty. In its ruling Thursday, the Committee on Infractions ruled that he “acted unethically when he committed serious violations by arranging striptease dances and sex acts for prospects, student-athletes and others, and did not cooperate with the investigation.”

The Cardinals also will face scholarship reductions and recruiting restrictions, a $5,000 fine and the forfeiture of any money received though conference revenue sharing from the 2012-15 NCAA tournaments, according to ESPN.

The committee also accepted Louisville’s self-imposed postseason ban from the 2015-16 season.

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