Again IT IS ILLEGAL to abuse the justice system for your own gain, to highjack a trial pay the attorney to force witnesses to answer questions you provide to the attorney under oath. Then pay that attorney for their work.

but yeah….never mind….nothing illegal…they are doing a self investigation because they didn’t do anything illegal….

comedy….the haters of the U…comedy.

Because nothing that has been accused…

Did they admit to violating a rule? No. All they said was they obtained evidence that couldn’t have obtained otherwise.

Guess what…

The whole purpose of an investigation is to obtain evidence they wouldn’t be able to get otherwise. If the information was freely available they wouldn’t need to investigate.

@chachooga

Do you know what illegal means? Because that has been accused thus far has been illegal.

I’m not saying that nothing criminal has occurred; I’m saying nothing that has been publicly reported rises to that level.

(Also, the PSU lawsuit is joke and the NCAA knows it. Not only is it a political stunt being carried out by one of the most unpopular governors in the country to hide the fact he is being investigated by the state’s attorney general for his mishandling of the Sandusky case, he doesn’t even have standing to sue since Penn St. isn’t a publicly owned university. Hell, even the school opposes the lawsuit.)

“As it does not have subpoena power, the NCAA does not have the authority to compel testimony through procedures outside of its enforcement program. Through bankruptcy proceedings, enforcement staff gained information for the investigation that would not have been accessible otherwise.”

It says right there. “The NCAA does not have the power to compel testimony”…”enforcement staff gained information for the investigation that would not have been accessible otherwise.”

no I pointed it out that the NCAA provided the questions.

But nevermind. You are right. The NCAA brought this up and Emmert was all ticked off in those phone interviews because they didn’t do anything illegal.

What is wrong with you man. The NCAA brought this up, they are ticked. It goes all the way up to the VP.

But you are right…nothing wrong.

They are wetting their pants about lawsuits from not just UM, but USC, UNC, PSU, etc…

but nevermind…there isn’t anything illegal.

You are Benny K, aren’t you?!?!??

Actually, you didn’t.

As it does not have subpoena power, the NCAA does not have the authority to compel testimony through procedures outside of its enforcement program. Through bankruptcy proceedings, enforcement staff gained information for the investigation that would not have been accessible otherwise.

Nothing in this statement (or any other as far as I know) says that the NCAA violated any rules or laws. Period.

If you can find contradictory evidence I am more than happy to change my opinion, but I have looked at no where does the NCAA admit actually violating any laws or procedures.

(Note the “numerous people” you are referring to are individuals who comment on a blog. None of them has ever looked at the NCAA rules regarding this issue.)

Numerous people have pointed out the NCAA *does* have bylaws preventing the coercion of testimony. And I’ve pointed out that the questions were *specifically* asked about NCAA violations — beyond anything that is relevant to the bankruptcy hearing.

Hell, the NCAA even acknowledges what they did was illegal. Where is the confusion?

You’re either ‘playing’ ignorant or have selective reading comprehension.

As for your other point, I don’t know, I guess I am just a stickler for rules and nothing (so far) appears to violate them.

Yeah, $25,000 is a lot of money, but this was also a $900 million bankruptcy case and while I don’t know the standard fees for bankruptcy cases I know litigators that charge that much for what amounts to depositions. Plus, it’s not like there are laws prohibiting anyone from overpaying their attorneys.

That said, I do think there is something more that hasn’t been revealed. Based on their statements it feels like NCAA may be using this as a smokescreen to hide something else.

come on man….i am no lawyer but all I have read speaks of the NCAA violating their own bylaws and regulations….what is your deal here? I would find the specifics, but just knowing their structure as a private organization separate from the justice department, they are set up in a way that does not allow them to coerce testimony. The justice department and our judiciary are the ones who dictate who is forced to testify under oath. Not the NCAA…..make enough sense for you?

Or go read their bylaws…i would provide a link, but just google it….i did not take the time to read all that.

Benny K is the author of this among other articles that constantly paint UM in a poor light despite this mess being a Hollywood story being woven by a felon on a 20 year sentence.

Benny once displayed The U logo upside down on this site….and ever since I will not allow his status as a “hater” of The U slide.

thought you might be him the way you are meticulously defending the NCAA’s behavior.

And dude the questions are non legal once this woman becomes an emplyee of the NCAA….do you not get that??? $25,000 for a bankruptcy deposition??? Come on man….it is not legal.

“On March 7th, is it true that Coach X brought Recruit Y over to Shapiro’s house to meet him?”

Even a question like that would be legal so long as the lawyer asserted it was asked in order to determine if anyone money may have changed hands at said meeting.

That said, I get your overall point and think it is worth considering. Personally, I would love to get a hold of the deposition (not that it will ever happen) to see exactly what was asked because while I doubt they are dumb enough to actually break the law people have certainly done dumber things.

@chachooga

So far as I know the NCAA doesn’t have any bylaws prohibiting investigators from coercing testimony; they simply don’t have any bylaws specifically allowing them to do so. It’s a narrow difference, but it’s significant.

Also, who is Benny K? (I’m not being sarcastic. I honestly don’t know)

they coherced testimony…they have NCAA bylaws against that.

They basically highjacked a bankruptcy hearing that is not public record, to force individuals to testify under oath where if they lie it is criminal, they provided the questions to the attorney, then they paid the attorney.

Oh by the way this is the attorney of their main source of information.

I have a feeling you are intentionally playing this down.

wonder why? Are you secretly Benny K????

That’s one of the problems, they weren’t. Perez was asking about pointed *NCAA* violations while the witness was under oath. Stuff like “On March 7th, is it true that Coach X brought Recruit Y over to Shapiro’s house to meet him?”

It’s akin to your ex-wife being deposed as a witness to a car-accident and you pay off the attorney to ask her if she cheated on you so you could use the information in a custody battle.

However, the NCAA’s own rules say they cannot ‘force’ testimony on someone. By using Perez as the avenue to ask non-bankruptcy related questions in the bankruptcy hearing, they were ‘forcing’ testimony, in direct violation of their own rules.

Also, getting involved with Perez is dirty for both Perez and the NCAA. Perez is defending her client in a bankruptcy claw-back case. The bankruptcy trustees are going after any asset Shapiro has. Perez’s goal in this case is to claim that every penny Shapiro bilked from people went to others — and that the bankruptcy trustees should therefore go after THOSE people and not Shapiro. So it’s in HER best interests to manufacture as large a case against Miami as possible.

If they’d just asked the attorney to collect some info during the regular process of the bankruptcy proceedings, then maybe it would have passed the smell test. But the appearance here is they were paying for dirt on Miami. I’ve never much liked Miami but I sure can’t support how this investigation was run.

I think they should follow their own rules.

I still haven’t heard what “rules” the investigators violated. I’m not saying they didn’t, but nothing that has been publicly revealed (to the best of my knowledge) violates any rules the NCAA has regarding investigations.

Dude if you don’t see how horribly illegal and unethical that is….well I guess you have different standards for how governing bodies should behave.

You can debate the ethics, but I highly doubt they would be dumb enough to do anything illegal. As long as the questions that were asked dealt with where Shapiro’s money went they were relevant for the proceedings.

Thanks Cane for the clear explanation.

Frug. The NCAA cannot coerce testimony. Nobody ever ever ever has to talk to the NCAA.

The NCAA forced the witnesses of a bankruptcy trial that had nothing to do with their investigation to answer questions under oath that had nothing to do with said trial. They gave the lawyer the questions to ask.

Then they paid the lawyer who asked the questions $20,000 for doing it.

Dude if you don’t see how horribly illegal and unethical that is….well I guess you have different standards for how governing bodies should behave.

I think they should obey the law. I think they should follow their own rules. Just saying.

And it is terribly ironic that a body that is enforcing violation of very specific and detailed rules would behave in such a manner.

It is almost like they needed to get something….maybe the lights were too bright and they didn’t wanna let it go as just a convicted felon making stuff up from jail about people who didn’t go to bat for him when he needed them.

They can thank the very shoddy “journalism” at yahoo for that.

Issue #1

I still don’t see why that is an issue. To the best of my knowledge, even though the NCAA can’t issue subpoenas doesn’t mean they can’t use evidence obtained from those who can.

Unless the NCAA has rules that explicitly prohibited their investigators from using “compelled” testimony I don’t see a problem with this.

Issue #2

This is legitimate. The problem is we don’t know exactly what questions were asked. The fact is as long the questions were phrased in such a way that they were even tangentially related to where Shapiro’s money went they would have been fair game in a bankruptcy proceeding.

The problem arises because the NCAA paid Perez to depose witnesses (under oath) in the bankruptcy trial for issues relating to the NCAA. According to someone who was deposed in the bankruptcy trial, Perez initially questioned them about Shapiro and where money went (things applicable to the bankruptcy trial), then questioned them about NCAA violations (not applicable to a bankruptcy trial).

This is wrong 2-fold:
1) The NCAA does not have the authority to compel testimony. They compelled testimony via Perez.
2) In doing so, the NCAA interfered with a federal bankruptcy trial. They probably won’t get much flack for it, but that’s illegal.

It’s incredibly stupid for the NCAA, if only for the fact that anyone investigated KNOWS what the NCAA can ask and how they can get their information. If information pops up that was *not* provided to the NCAA but *was* mentioned in a bankruptcy trial, it’s fairly obvious what is going on.

I have to say I’m honestly surprised at how dumb the NCAA behaved. I can’t tell if it was blinding ignorance or arrogance that led them to think they could get away with it.

I’m leaning towards the latter as more details come out about previous investigations.

That’s what makes me wonder if their isn’t something else going on here that hasn’t been revealed. Especially since it has been public knowledge for months that the NCAA used the bankruptcy depositions to gather evidence (though the fact that Shapiro’s attorney was on their payroll is new).

As it does not have subpoena power, the NCAA does not have the authority to compel testimony through procedures outside of its enforcement program. Through bankruptcy proceedings, enforcement staff gained information for the investigation that would not have been accessible otherwise.

That’s my point though; what was unethical about what they did? They didn’t break any laws or (to my knowledge) their own bylaws, they just pursued a vigorous investigation. Was this a “normal” approach? No it wasn’t, but that doesn’t mean it was wrong. All the questions Shapiro’s attorney asked were relevant for a bankruptcy filing.

Miami wants to close this thing out. The NCAA doesn’t want to give in to Miami b/c other schools (USC etc.) will cry foul.

If the NCAA doesn’t give in, Miami sues. And discovery is a btch.

I’m sure USC is pushing hard for a lawsuit so ALL the skeletons come out of the closet.