Reports: Former Louisville recruit’s father testifies to receiving thousands in payments
Brian Bowen Sr., the father of the former Louisville basketball player whose recruitment plunged the university into the scandal of an FBI investigation, testified in court Thursday that he accepted thousands of dollars in payments from shoe companies and coaches for his son to play during his college recruitment and had offers for hundreds of thousands more from college programs.
According to posts on Twitter on Thursday by Law360.com reporter Pete Brush and YahooSports.com’s Dan Wetzel, Bowen Sr. testified in U.S. District Court in New York that he accepted payments from one of the defendants, Christian Dawkins, and others as part of “The arrangement with Adidas” as early as 2015.
Bowen Sr. also detailed lucrative offers brought to him by Dawkins for his son to attend certain schools, including an alleged $150,000 offer to play for Oklahoma State, plus $8,000 for a car and help with housing, $100,000 and “a good job” allegedly from Creighton, $50,000 allegedly from Arizona, and more, according to Tweets by Wetzel.
Bowen Sr. also testified that he received $2,000 per month from former La Lumiere Coach Shane Heirman for his son to play at the Indiana boarding school, $5,000 to $8,000 to play AAU basketball with a Nike team and $25,000 for his son to play for an Adidas AAU team with that money coming from Dawkins another Adidas representative.
Brush reported that Bowen Sr. told the jury that his son wanted to go to Arizona, “but by 2017, with Christian Dawkins pushing Louisville, the Bowen family began to look at the school knowing that Rick Pitino was coach and that ‘there might be money involved’ from Adidas.”
On Tuesday, defense attorney Casey Donnelly admitted that her client, former Adidas executive Jim Gatto, paid the family of recruit Brian Bowen $100,000 to attend Louisville as was alleged last September in a federal indictment.
Bowen Sr. testified on Thursday that Dawkins told him an original offer of $60,000-$80,000 to attend Louisville was increased to $100,000 “because that is how much Billy Preston got to go to Kansas,” Wetzel tweeted. Both Louisville and Kansas are Adidas-affiliated schools.
Before his bombshell testimony, Bowen Sr. broke down in tears on the stand when he was asked why his son no longer plays for Louisville, Brush reported. A short recess was ordered.
The controversy surrounding last year’s indictment in this case led to the abrupt firing of Pitino, assistant coaches Jordan Fair and Kenny Johnson and athletics director Tom Jurich.
Earlier in court Thursday, prosecutors said Johnson paid Bowen’s family $1,300 while Fair gave an unnamed recruit $900. Both details had not been previously released.
Kentucky mentioned
On Wednesday, a former financial adviser who pleaded guilty in the investigation to taking part in the conspiracy to pay players was questioned about his discussions in trying to make payments to former Kentucky player Bam Adebayo, according to a report by ESPN.com’s Mark Schlabach.
The witness, Munish Sood, testified that he gave a $30,000 loan “to someone connected to Markelle Fultz,” while he was still in college at Washington, Schlabach wrote.
In cross-examination, Sood’s attorney asked him about attempted payments to Adebayo and other UK players coordinated with another man, Stephen Pina. No UK players or coaches have been implicated in the case, although court documents do show Adebayo and another former UK player, Nerlens Noel, as part of the evidence in the case.
This story was originally published October 4, 2018 at 6:11 PM.