A federal investigation into extortion claims by New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush and his family has revealed the existence of taped conversations that could confirm Bush took cash and gifts while he was playing football for the University of Southern California. …
The U.S. District Attorney’s office in San Diego has issued grand jury subpoenas to multiple witnesses in the probe since October, requiring them to appear before federal investigators. According to a copy of a subpoena obtained by Yahoo! Sports, at least one of the witnesses was asked to produce “any recordings in your possession of conversations between Lloyd Lake and Reggie Bush, Denise Griffin, or LaMar Griffin.” Denise Griffin is Bush’s mother. LaMar Griffin is Bush’s stepfather.
If such taped conversations involving Bush become public, Bush and USC could face penalties from the NCAA and Pacific-10 Conference, which are conducting ongoing investigations into reports of extra benefits.
If the NCAA rules that Bush received extra benefits during his playing career at USC, he could be ruled retroactively ineligible. Since some of the benefits date to the 2004 season, the Trojans’ national championship that season could be rescinded. USC could face further NCAA sanctions and Bush’s 2005 Heisman Trophy could be in jeopardy. The Heisman ballot indicates that an athlete must meet NCAA eligibility requirements to be considered for college football’s most prestigious award.
Stay tuned, as they say.
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Categories: USC, College Football
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January 25th, 2007 at 9:33:32 am
Someone needs to remind Pete Carroll that there’s a job open in Dallas.
January 25th, 2007 at 9:44:24 am
So if Reggie loses the Heisman, does that mean Vince Young gets it?
January 25th, 2007 at 10:19:10 am
My anonymous source told me that Yahoo Sports, especially Dan Wetzel, are a bunch of attention whores. Yawwwwwwn.
January 25th, 2007 at 10:54:20 am
I am physically ill.
January 25th, 2007 at 11:49:11 am
WOW!! This could have some serious downstream repurcusions.
What sad about this is that pretty much all college atheletes at major universities get “benefits” of some sort or another throughout their time at the school.
January 25th, 2007 at 12:29:34 pm
JO
Define “benefits”, and define “major” universities
I would argue thats not true, unless you are possibly referring to tutors
January 25th, 2007 at 1:39:08 pm
I love it when people attack the source. It shows that they have no response to the actual material presented.
January 25th, 2007 at 2:08:53 pm
How long do these investigations take? You’d think there would be a definite answer by now.
January 25th, 2007 at 2:17:12 pm
From what I understand, the reason there isn’t a definite answer is because there isn’t sufficient evidence. The NCAA can’t force Reggie to talk, because they no longer have any power over him, now that he’s in the NFL (and of course, taking gifts isn’t against the law, so they can’t subpoena him). That’s why these tapes are significant — they raise the possibility that the NCAA will actually have enough evidence to really do something about this.
The standard of proof required for Yahoo Sports to say, “We have sources that say Reggie Bush took money,” is considerably lower than the standard of proof required for the NCAA to say, “We have proof that Reggie Bush took money, and so we’re going to take away USC’s national championship.” As it should be, obviously. Yahoo Sports and its sources accused Bush/USC of wrongdoing; the NCAA needs not just accusations, but proof. (Also, the Yahoo Sports article didn’t provide anything close to a definitive answer to the “loss of institutional control” question that is absolutely pivotal to the ultimate determination of whether this is just a Reggie Bush issue, or a USC issue.)
January 25th, 2007 at 3:16:51 pm
I love it when people attack the source. It shows that they have no response to the actual material presented.
JT, the problem is, there is no “actual material presented” which we can attack — it’s all innuendo and “our sources say” bullcrap.
January 25th, 2007 at 3:18:55 pm
No, JT, in some cases it shows they’re reserving comment on the “material” until the “source” writes stories that don’t repeatedly end in question marks.
January 25th, 2007 at 8:04:14 pm
Brendan…a couple of thoughts…When you say “and of course, taking gifts isn’t against the law, so they can’t subpoena him”..who is the “they” you are referring to? The NCAA? Does the NCAA ever have subpoena power even if it was against the law. And as to the current “case” which is an investigation of extortion by the feds, of course the feds do have subpoena power which is how they apparently obtained the tapes anyway. The problem for the NCAA is that no one is likely to be willing to talk with them. And with the tapes part of a criminal investigation I don’t see how the NCAA will get their hands on them…unless they are used at some trial.
I also agree about the complete failure of Yahoo to deal with some of the key questions. Since the benefits were paid by a persons or group outside of the University and clearly not part of the booster types, it will be very difficult to punish USC regardless of what is said on the tapes unless there is something further demonstrating USC’s knowledge of the situation. Yet Yahoo never seems to mention that factor and I think it is clearly irresponsible for them not to do so. In other words, even if the NCAA finds that Bush violated NCAA policies it is likely that USC will not face any penalties but instead Yahoo essentially asserts the opposite, namely that USC will likely face penalties merely because Bush violated those rules.
And since the Bush family lived in the San Diego area…some 100 miles away from USC, it is going to be hard to see how USC should have known about the situation anyway…unless there is some additional evidence to the contrary.
Even in the Jarrett situation where he essentially got a $54,000 benefit from someone who might arguably be a booster (Leinarts’ father), USC did not face any penalty and Jarrett was allowed to return to the team after agreeing to repay the money. Since Jarrett received improper benefits while on the team he was technically an ineligible player yet USC never had to forfeit any games that Jarrett played during that time.
January 26th, 2007 at 2:50:10 pm
Well, I know in some states it is a criminal act to record someone without them knowing it. I don’t know about California or other states where this may have happened, but I would like to see the fucker who was trying to pay off Bush and his family end up getting fucked in the end as well.