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Feds charge man they say threatened to burn black church – NEWS 1130

admin — Sat, 13 Jun 2020 01:21:51 +0000

NORFOLK, Va. — Federal authorities say they’ve arrested a North Carolina man who threatened to burn down a black church in Virginia.

John Malcolm Bareswill, 63, was arrested Friday on a charged related to his alleged threat to burn down a Baptist church in Virginia Beach, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said.

Court records said Bareswill, who lives in Catawba, North Carolina, called the church earlier this week and made racist remarks and threatened to set the church on fire after one of the church leaders took part in a public vigil for George Floyd.

Floyd died May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on his neck for more than eight minutes even after he pleaded for air and stopped moving.

Court records did not immediately identify an attorney for Bareswill.

The Associated Press

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Feds mull hate crime charges in shooting death of black jogger in Georgia

admin — Mon, 11 May 2020 18:58:53 +0000

SAVANNAH, Ga. — The Justice Department said Monday that federal prosecutors are weighing possible hate crime charges in the slaying of Ahmaud Arbery, a black man gunned down after being pursued by two armed white men in a Georgia subdivision.

Arbery was fatally shot Feb. 23 by a father and son who told police they chased him because they believed he was a burglar. They were arrested last week, more than two months later, on charges of felony murder and aggravated assault after video of the shooting appeared online.

Attorneys for Arbery’s parents and others, including Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr and the Southern Poverty Law Center, have asked for a federal investigation. Georgia has no hate crime law allowing charges at the state level.

“We are assessing all of the evidence to determine whether federal hate crimes charges are appropriate,” Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in a statement Monday.

Previously, a Justice Department spokesman had said the FBI is assisting in the investigation and the department would assist if a federal crime is uncovered.

Kupec’s statement Monday also said the Justice Department was considering Carr’s request for federal authorities to investigate how local police and prosecutors handled the case. She said Carr has been asked to “forward to federal authorities any information that he has.”

Gregory McMichael, 64, and his 34-year-old son, Travis McMichael, are jailed on charges of felony murder and aggravated assault in Arbery’s slaying. Gregory McMichael is a former Glynn County police officer who later worked 20 years as an investigator for the local district attorney’s office. He retired a year ago.

The father and son told police they thought Arbery matched the appearance of a burglary suspect who they said had been recorded on a surveillance camera some time before, according to the Glynn County police report filed after the shooting.

Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper Jones, has said she thinks her 25-year-old son, a former high school football player, was just jogging in the neighbourhood before he was killed.

Meanwhile, a man identifying himself as the person who recorded the cellphone video of the shooting said he’s received death threats.

William “Roddie” Bryan is identified as a witness in the police report taken after Arbery’s shooting. He appears to be mentioned in a single sentence of the report, which says Gregory McMichael told an officer that “’Roddy’ attempted to block (Arbery) which was unsuccessful.”

“I had nothing to do with it. I’m trying to get my life back to normal, and it’s been smeared for the last week,” Bryan told WJAX-TV in an interview that aired Monday. “I was told I was a witness and I’m not sure what I am, other than receiving a bunch of threats.”

Bryan has not been charged in the case. The TV station reported Bryan would not discuss his involvement in the events that led to Arbery’s death.

Outside prosecutors were appointed to handle the case. But the McMichaels weren’t arrested until last week. After video of the shooting leaked online Tuesday, the lead prosecutor on the case asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to look into the shooting. The McMichaels were arrested Thursday.

It was not known Monday whether the McMichaels had attorneys to represent them. They had no lawyers at their first court appearance Friday.

The leaked video shows a black man running at a jogging pace. The truck is stopped in the road ahead of him, with one of the white men standing in the pickup’s bed and the other beside the open driver’s side door.

The running man attempts to pass the pickup on the passenger side, moving just beyond the truck, briefly outside the camera’s view. A gunshot sounds, and the video shows the running man grappling with a man over what appears to be a shotgun or rifle. A second shot can be heard, and the running man can be seen punching the other man. A third shot is fired at point-blank range. The running man staggers a few feet and falls face down.

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Feds Charge 10 Ex-NFL Players Accused Of Stealing $3.9M From Players Trust Fund

admin — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 21:19:53 +0000

Washington, DC – Several former National Football League (NFL) players, including former Redskin Pro Bowl running back Clinton Portis, have been charged with trying to defraud the league’s health care program for retired players.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has indicted Portis, Carlos Rogers, Robert McCune, John Eubanks, Tamarick Vanover, Ceandris Brown, James Butler, Frederick Bennett, Correll Buckhalter, and Etric Pruitt so far, FOX News reported.

The government has said it planned to also charge former NFL players Joe Horn and Reche Caldwell with conspiracy to commit health care fraud.

“The defendants are alleged to have developed and executed a fraudulent scheme to undermine a health care benefit plan established by the NFL – one established to help their former teammates and colleagues pay for legitimate medical expenses,” said U.S. Attorney Robert M. Duncan Jr., for the Eastern District of Kentucky.

“The defendants allegedly submitted false claims to the plan and obtained money for expensive medical equipment that was never purchased or received, depriving that plan of valuable resources to help others meet their medical needs,” Duncan said.

The NFL established the Gene Upshaw NFL Player Health Reimbursement Account Plan in 2006 to provide tax-free reimbursement for medical expenses that were not covered by insurance that were incurred by former players or their immediate family members, FOX News reported.

Prosecutors have alleged that the group of former football players tried to charge made-up expenses for expensive health equipment to the NFL’s health care plan so they could get tax-free reimbursements.

Federal documents showed that, collectively, the charged players submitted more than $3.9 million in fraudulent medical claims between June 2017 and June 2018 for hyperbaric oxygen chambers, cryotherapy machines, ultrasound machines, and electromagnetic therapy devices that were designed to be used on a horse, FOX News reported.

The fake claims for expensive equipment ran $40,000 to $50,000 each.

The players who first participated in the fraud are accused of recruiting other players to participate and asking for kickbacks or bribes as payment, FOX News reported.

The bribes ranged from a few thousand dollars up to as much as $10,000 per successful fraudulent claim.

Portis, Brown, Butler, and Bennett have each been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and health care fraud, one count of wire fraud, and one count of health care fraud, according to FOX News.

McCune has been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and health care fraud, nine counts of wire fraud, and nine counts of health care fraud.

Eubanks, Vanover, and Rogers have each been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and health care fraud, two counts of wire fraud, and two counts of health care fraud, according to FOX News.

And Buckhalter and Pruitt have each been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and health care fraud.

Portis was by far the most high-profile of the former football stars to be charged, FOX News reported.

He played nine seasons for the Washington Redskins and made $43.1 million over his career in salary and bonuses.

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Young Indian actresses lured to Chicago in high-end prostitution scheme, feds charge

admin — Thu, 14 Jun 2018 05:32:57 +0000

The young Indian actress arrived at O’Hare International Airport last Christmas Eve on a flight from Abu Dhabi.

Carrying a temporary visa, she told customs agents she had come to the U.S. to attend an Indian association event at the behest of her manager and would be staying only a couple weeks.

But federal prosecutors say that story was a ruse concocted by the actress’ manager. And he wasn’t helping her with her film career — he was her pimp.

Recently unsealed federal charges accuse a Chicago couple of Indian descent of running a high-end prostitution ring to lure actresses from Tollywood — a nickname for the lively Telugu-language film scene in southern India — to the U.S. and advertise them for sex at Indian conferences and cultural events across the country.

The ring charged clients up to $3,000 for each sexual encounter, according to a 42-page criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago.

While here on temporary visas, at least five actresses were sometimes forced to stay in a dingy, two-story apartment building in Chicago’s Belmont Cragin neighborhood waiting for their next “date,” the charges alleged. They also met clients in hotels at conferences in Dallas, New Jersey and Washington.

The prostitution scheme was allegedly masterminded by Kishan Modugumudi, 34, an Indian businessman who rose to become a player in the Tollywood movie industry and co-produced several hit films.

The complaint alleged that Modugumudi threatened the life of one of the actresses and her family if she told law enforcement the truth about what she did while in the country.

Modugumudi told the woman, identified in the charges only as Victim A, that “it would be nothing for him to harm her if she talked to the police about him because she is small and unknown, not a big actress,” the complaint alleged. “(He) further stated he had a copy of her passport with her family’s name and address in it.”

Also charged was Modugumudi’s wife, Chandra, 31, who allegedly kept detailed ledgers of the sex acts performed by each girl, including where they occurred and how much they collected.

Federal agents discovered the ledgers when they searched the Modugumudis’ apartment in the 5700 block of West Belden Avenue in February, according to the complaint. They also found more than 70 condoms divided up into “multiple Ziplock bags.”

Agents later obtained a search warrant for Kishan Modugumudi’s email accounts and discovered a note written by Victim A in December begging him to stop harassing and threatening her, according to the complaint.

“Please do not call me and don’t try to contact me,” the woman allegedly wrote. “It was very unpleasant doing business with you and I don’t want to do any business with you now or in future. If you try contacting me again, I’ll have to make formal complaint.”

Modugumudi and his wife have been in federal custody since agents arrested them in late April in suburban Washington, D.C., on a warrant, records show.

At a detention hearing last week in federal court in Chicago, the couple, dressed in jail clothes, listened to the proceedings through a Telugu interpreter.

Attorney Molly Armour, who represents Kishan Modugumudi, told the judge she had been trying to find a place for the couple to live so they could be freed on bail but that so far she had been unsuccessful. U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria Valdez ordered them to remain in custody for the time being. The couple’s two school-age children, meanwhile, are in the custody of child welfare officials in Virginia.

Armour declined to comment on the case. Attorney Keri Ambrosio, who represents Chandra Modugumudi did not immediately return calls for comment.

Founded in the silent-film era in the early 1900s, the Telugu film industry is one of the oldest and busiest in India. Its commercial hub, Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad, holds the Guinness World Record as the largest film studio complex in the world with 47 sound stages.

But Tollywood also has been criticized as a haven for traffickers who use promises of stardom to trap aspiring young actresses in the sex trade. An estimated 200,000 women and children in India are forced into prostitution every year, many lured by opportunities to model or act in films, according to Reuters.

According to a 2010 story on Slate.com, “savvy pimps” also play off the sexual imagery in Tollywood films to “create a market for B-list and C-list ‘starlets’ — often unsuccessful actresses from questionable backgrounds — for men who want to have what’s sold as a glamorous sexual experience.”

Meanwhile, Tollywood announced earlier this year it was producing a series of short anti-trafficking films aimed at dissuading young men from buying sex, according to Reuters. The six short dramas were made by some of Tollywood’s biggest production houses as part of an initiative by an anti-trafficking charity and the U.S. Consulate General in Hyderabad, Reuters reported.

Rumors of the investigation into Modugumudi’s alleged prostitution ring have been reported in several English-language web sites that cover the Telugu cinema.

The criminal complaint filed against Modugumudi and his wife was unusual because sex crimes charged in federal court typically involve child victims or women sold into sexual slavery, not traditional prostitution.

In this case, some of the alleged victims of the scheme appeared less than cooperative when questioned by U.S. authorities — including Victim A, who claimed that she never actually had sex with clients but just spent time with them and “asked for help.”

A client interviewed as part of the investigation also tried to mislead agents by saying he’d had conversations with Modugumudi’s wife — whom he knew as “Vebha Jayam” — about “the price to have sex with actresses” but never actually went through with the proposition, according to the complaint.

That client, identified as Individual G, later acknowledged meeting Chandra Modugumudi in the lobby of the Comfort Suites at O’Hare in 2016 and paying her $1,110 in cash to have sex with an actress who was staying in one of the rooms there, according to the complaint.

In addition to emails discussing the scheme, authorities uncovered dozens of text messages from Chandra’s phone in which she appeared to haggle with clients over which girls were available and the prices for each, according to the complaint. Often, she would send photos of an actress available for a date while negotiating.

One text conversation from December 2016 showed that after Chandra sent photos of one girl to a potential client, he responded, “For me?” with a smiley face emoticon, according to the complaint.

In another conversation, an actress working for the prostitution ring, identified as Victim D, texted to Chandra that she had just finished performing oral sex on a client.

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Feds Indict 3 Alleged Drug Dealers Charged With 'Execution-Style Slaying' of Former NFL Player

admin — Mon, 26 Feb 2018 04:23:52 +0000

On Thursday, a trio of alleged drug dealers were charged in federal court for the slaying of ex-NFL linebacker Robert Eddins and 32-year-old Ricardo McFarlin. On Dec. 20, 2016, both Eddins and McFarlin were found in the basement of a home on Detroit’s west side dead from gunshot wounds to the head after an apparent “execution-style slaying.”

According to the Detroit News, the three men indicted were: Michael DeAngelo Griffin, 34, of Birmingham, Alabama; Clifton Dennis Epps, 30, of Amory, Mississippi; and Mariano Lozoya Garcia, 47, of Brownsville, Texas.

All three men are currently in custody and will be brought to Detroit in order to face charges. If they are convicted of the murder, drug, and weapons charges that are listed in the six-count indictment, then all three men face life in prison. The indictment also states that the three men came to Detroit from Alabama during a period where they dealt heroin and coke.

Eddins, who was first a product of Detroit Crockett High School, had been a linebacker for Ball State from 2007-10. During his time on campus, he racked up 167 tackles and 17 sacks. After that he signed with the Buffalo Bills as an undrafted free agent in 2011. He went on to play just one regular season game for Buffalo before being put on injured reserved, and then about a week later he was waived. He later joined their practice squad, and once out of the NFL, attempted to join the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the 2014 CFL preseason before getting cut after he injured his hamstring.

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What we know about Arizona, the feds, and the NCAA

admin — Sat, 24 Feb 2018 21:50:52 +0000

Arizona head basketball coach Sean Miller isn’t coaching the Wildcats in their game at Oregon on Saturday night.

On Friday, ESPN reported that an FBI wiretap revealed a conversation between Miller and Christian Dawkins, a central figure in the FBI’s probe of corruption in college basketball. In the call, Miller and Dawkins reportedly “discussed” a $100,000 payment to freshman center Deandre Ayton when he was a recruit in the class of 2017. Ayton is eligible and will play in the game on Saturday, the Wildcats announced.

Dawkins is a former associate of once-powerful NBA agent Andy Miller at his agency, ASM Sports. The government has reportedly tapped more than 3,000 hours of Dawkins’ phone conversations. Dawkins was a focus of a Yahoo Sports report on Friday that showed documents purportedly detailing loans and other payments to players and their families.

“I believe it is in the best interests of our team that I not coach the game tonight,” Miller said in a statement. He added he is “confident that I will be vindicated.” Lorenzo Romar, the former Washington head coach and current Arizona assistant, is filling in for him.

Arizona’s been caught up in the FBI investigation for months.

In September, the feds charged Dawkins with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud itself, and conspiracy to launder money. The government accuses Dawkins of paying bribes to a former Arizona assistant, Book Richardson, in exchange for steering Arizona players to a management company he’d started with another defendant, Munish Sood.

The government accuses Richardson of accepting $20,000 in bribes, including a $15,000 payment from an undercover FBI agent. The government says the goal of the bribe was to get Richardson to steer a five-star point guard to Arizona and, later, to Dawkins and Sood’s business venture. (That point guard did commit to Arizona but later changed his decision to Villanova.)

Richardson faces various fraud charges. He also faces a charge for soliciting bribes as an “agent of a federally funded organization.” Because the University of Arizona does more than $10,000 in business with the government through loans, grants, and other “federal assistance,” the government is prosecuting Richardson (and two other former coaches) under that broad anti-corruption law. He’s also facing a charge for “travel act conspiracy” — basically put, crossing state lines to break the law.

Richardson has pleaded not guilty to six felonies. If he were convicted on all of them, he’d face up to 80 years in prison, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The criminal case involving Richardson, former Oklahoma State assistant Lamont Evans, and former USC assistant Tony Bland, all on similar charges, isn’t close to wrapping up.

We have dates for all three of the criminal court cases in the basketball scandal. October 1 for Gatto/Dawkins/Code. Feb. 4 2019 for Person and Michel. And the final case — with includes Book/Evans/Bland — is April 22 of 2019. Long way to go.

— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) February 15, 2018

Miller hasn’t been charged with a crime. His future is unclear.

ESPN’s report indicates that Miller sought to work directly with Dawkins:

According to people with knowledge of the FBI investigation, Miller and Dawkins, a runner working for ASM Sports agent Andy Miller, had multiple conversations about Ayton. When Dawkins asked Miller if he should work with assistant coach Emanuel “Book” Richardson to finalize their agreement, Miller told Dawkins he should deal directly with him when it came to money, the sources said.

Without knowing more about Miller’s reported conversations with Dawkins, we can’t know how federal investigators might be dealing with him.

A program arranging a payment for a player would be an NCAA violation, which could lead to sanctions including vacated records, postseason bans, or any number of garden-variety NCAA punishments. Whether it would be against the law for a coach to arrange such a payment depends on a host of other factors, and we don’t know those.

Miller has, over the years, turned Arizona into one of the sport’s recruiting powers. The Wildcats load up with blue-chip talent every year, and they win lots. Miller entered the weekend with a winning percentage of 77 in nine years in Tucson.

Miller has a weird buyout structure in his Arizona contract, which would result in the school paying him more to fire him with cause than without. The school would have to pay Miller more than $10 million if he were fired for cause, such as an NCAA violation.

Ayton’s college future is also hazy, but it won’t last much longer anyway.

Among the many things we don’t know is what payment, if any, ultimately went to Ayton. Taking money even fractionally as big as $100,000 would cost Ayton his NCAA eligibility, in addition to subjecting Arizona to the NCAA’s wrath going forward.

That probably wouldn’t be a big problem for Ayton, personally, because he’s a star player on his way to the NBA. He’s a near-certain lottery pick in this summer’s draft, and the NBA — unlike the NCAA — doesn’t have a problem with its players getting paid. He’s averaged about 20 points and 11 rebounds per game in an All-American-type freshman season.

The NCAA strikes an outraged tone when it talks about the FBI case, but it’s that organization’s insistence that players not be paid at all that allows college sports’ underground economy to flourish. Fortunately for Ayton, he’ll soon play in a league that doesn’t penalize players for using their own talent to make money.

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Ex-NFL player executed by drug dealers, feds say

admin — Thu, 22 Feb 2018 17:54:21 +0000

Robert Eddins(Photo: Bridgett Eddins)

Detroit – Three alleged drug dealers were charged in federal court Thursday with killing former NFL player Robert Eddins and another man two years ago.

A new indictment helps clarify circumstances surrounding the mysterious deaths of Eddins, 28, and Ricardo McFarlin, 32. The men were executed and their bodies found in the basement of a home in the 7900 block of Pierson on Detroit’s west side on Dec. 20, 2016.

The men died of multiple gunshot wounds, according to the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s office.

The three men indicted Thursday are:

■Michael DeAngelo Griffin, 34, of Birmingham, Alabama

■Clifton Dennis Epps, 30, of Amory, Mississippi.

■Mariano Lozoya Garcia, 47, of Brownsville, Texas.

The three men are in custody and will be brought to Detroit to face charges. They face up to life in prison if convicted of murder, drug and weapons charges listed in the six-count indictment.

“We hope to bring justice for the families of the deceased men and dismantle all organizations that spread these deadly poisons in our neighborhoods,” U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider said in a statement.

Robert Eddins played one regular-season game for the Buffalo Bills in 2011. (Photo: Rick Stewart / Getty Images)

The three men traveled from Alabama to Detroit to kill Eddins and McFarlin during a period in which the trio was distributing cocaine and heroin, according to the indictment.

“The murders of Eddin and McFarlin is just another example of how violence is intertwined with drug trafficking,” Timothy Plancon, special agent in charge of the Detroit field office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said in a statement.

Eddins, a Detroit Crockett High School product, played football at Ball State University before a brief stint as a defensive end with the Bills. He played one game for the Bills as an undrafted rookie in 2011.

At Ball State, Eddins played most of his time under head coach Brady Hoke, who went on to coach the University of Michigan from 2011 to 2014. Eddins had 167 tackles and 17 sacks in four seasons with the Cardinals.

rsnell@detroitnews.com

(313) 222-2486

Twitter: @robertsnellnews

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Feds drop charges against AAU basketball program director in Adidas scandal case

admin — Thu, 15 Feb 2018 00:06:54 +0000

The federal government has dropped criminal charges against Jonathan Augustine, a former AAU basketball director from Florida, who was one of 10 men arrested in September for allegedly conspiring to funnel money from Adidas to recruits’ families.

Augustine, the former president of The League Initiative and director of the 1 Family AAU in Orlando, Florida, was charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering after the FBI’s two-year investigation into bribes and other corruption in men’s college basketball.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office asked a federal judge to dismiss charges against Augustine on Friday, and a spokesman for the U.S. District Court of Southern New York confirmed to ESPN on Tuesday that the case against Augustine is closed.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that the federal government had requested to dismiss the charges against Augustine.

The FBI’s clandestine investigation led to the arrests of four assistant coaches: Arizona’s Emanuel “Book” Richardson, Auburn’s Chuck Person, Oklahoma State’s Lamont Evans and USC’s Tony Bland.

The FBI also alleged that Adidas executives Jim Gatto and Merl Code, sports agent Christian Dawkins and financial planner Munish Sood conspired with others to steer high-profile recruits to Adidas-sponsored schools, including Louisville and Miami. In return, the coaches would ensure that the players signed with Adidas, Dawkins and Sood when they turned pro.

The investigation led to the firings of Louisville basketball head coach Rick Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich. Pitino and Jurich have denied knowing about the scheme to funnel money to players’ families.

Augustine and Sood weren’t indicted on the federal charges, and a person familiar with the case told ESPN that it’s believed that Augustine and Sood are cooperating with federal authorities.

The FBI alleged that Augustine met with Gatto, Code, Dawkins and an unnamed Louisville assistant coach at a Las Vegas hotel room on July 27. Financial planner Marty Blazer, who was working with the federal government, and an undercover FBI agent were also in the meeting, which the FBI recorded with hidden video cameras.

During the meeting, the federal complaint alleges, Dawkins laid out plans to funnel money to the family of an unnamed Louisville recruit, who was scheduled to graduate from high school in 2019. “The mom is like, ‘We need our f—ing money,'” Dawkins said. “So we got to be able to fund the situation. … We’re all working together to get this kid to [Louisville]. Obviously, in turn, the kid will come back to us.”

When Dawkins mentioned they’d have to be careful because the Cardinals were already on NCAA probation, the Louisville assistant agreed. “We gotta be very low-key,” he said.

The men agreed to funnel the money through Augustine’s program, and he promised them that “all my kids will be [Adidas] kids.” The undercover agent then handed Augustine an envelope containing $12,700 in cash, according to the FBI, and Dawkins told him that it would cover payments to the second player’s family for July and August.

The FBI alleged the men also conspired to funnel about $150,000 to an unidentified player who was being recruited by Miami. They planned to follow a scheme similar to the one used with the Louisville recruits to keep the player from signing with a school sponsored by a rival apparel company, which they said had offered the player $150,000, according to the complaint.

Hurricanes coach Jim Larranaga has denied knowledge of the scheme.

In a separate motion filed on Friday, attorneys representing Code, Dawkins and Gatto asked a federal judge to exclude certain wiretap recordings and suppress evidence from the searches of the men’s cellphones.

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Feds drop charges against AAU director

admin — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 15:40:49 +0000

Augustine, the former president of The League Initiative and director of the 1 Family AAU in Orlando, was charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering after the FBI’s two-year investigation into bribes and other corruption in college basketball.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that the federal government had requested to dismiss the charges against Augustine.

The FBI’s clandestine investigation led to the arrests of four assistant coaches: Arizona’s Emmanuel “Book” Richardson, Auburn’s Chuck Person, Oklahoma State’s Lamont Evans and USC’s Tony Bland.

The investigation led to the firings of Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino and athletics director Tom Jurich. Pitino and Jurich have denied knowing about the scheme to funnel money to players’ families.

Augustine and Sood weren’t indicted on the federal charges, and a person familiar with the case told ESPN that it’s believed that Augustine and Sood are cooperating with federal authorities.

During the meeting, the federal complaint alleges, Dawkins laid out plans to funnel money to the family of an unnamed Louisville recruit, who was scheduled to graduate from high school in 2019. “The mom is like, ‘We need our [expletive] money,'” Dawkins said. “So we got to be able to fund the situation … We’re all working together to get this kid to [Louisville]. Obviously, in turn, the kid will come back to us.”

When Dawkins mentioned they’d have to be careful because the Cardinals were already on NCAA probation, the Louisville assistant agreed. “We gotta be very low-key,” he said.

The FBI alleged the men also conspired to funnel approximately $150,000 to an unidentified player who was being recruited by Miami. They planned to follow a scheme similar to the one used with the Louisville recruits to keep the player from signing with a school sponsored by a rival apparel company, which they claimed had offered the player $150,000, according to the complaint.

Hurricanes coach Jim Larranaga has denied knowledge of the scheme.

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