Missouri head coach Frank Haith encourages his team during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Florida on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013, in Columbia, Mo. Missouri won the game 63-60. (AP Photo/L.G. Patterson)
Missouri head coach Frank Haith encourages his team during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Florida on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013, in Columbia, Mo. Missouri won the game 63-60. (AP Photo/L.G. Patterson)
Miami coach Jim Larranaga reacts to a play by Virginia during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game in Coral Gables, Fla., Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013. Miami won 54-50. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)
CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) ? Miami finally received its notice of allegations from the NCAA, which accused the school of having a "lack of institutional control" for not monitoring the conduct of a booster who provided thousands of dollars in cash, gifts and other items to football and men's basketball players.
The allegations arrived on Tuesday. The institutional-control charge is typically one of the most severe the NCAA can bring after an investigation of rules violations.
The NCAA declined comment Tuesday night, a day after revealing that it was erasing some elements of its case against Miami because the information was obtained in impermissible ways.
"We deeply regret any violations, but we have suffered enough," Miami President Donna Shalala said in a statement announcing the university had received notice from the NCAA.
A person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press about the lack of institutional control charge, and that several former members of Miami coaching staffs are named in the notice of allegations, including Missouri basketball coach Frank Haith, who was with the Hurricanes from 2004-11.
"I did get a notice of allegation," Haith said after Missouri beat Florida Tuesday night. "Contrary to what was reported (weeks ago), there was no unethical conduct in my notice of allegation. And it is just an allegation, so we get a chance to defend ourselves."
Next up: The sanctions phase, where Miami's penalties will be decided. The Hurricanes have already self-imposed several sanctions, including sitting out two bowl games and a conference football championship game. Shalala said Monday she believes those punishments should be enough.
This saga started in September 2010, when the university told the NCAA that convicted Ponzi scheme architect and former Miami booster Nevin Shapiro made allegations to the school against former players. Shapiro said he interacted mostly with football players and recruits, as well as a significantly smaller number of men's basketball players.
Shapiro is serving a 20-year prison term for masterminding a $930 million fraud scheme.
"Many of the charges brought forth are based on the word of a man who made a fortune by lying," Shalala wrote. "The NCAA enforcement staff acknowledged to the University that if Nevin Shapiro, a convicted con man, said something more than once, it considered the allegation 'corroborated' ? an argument which is both ludicrous and counter to legal practice"
Miami wants to get through the sanctions portion of the process as quickly as possible. But typically, it takes about three months for a hearing, and then can take several weeks ? if not months ? more for the penalties to be handed down. The sides coming to a settlement beforehand is another possibility.
Shalala said Miami will work diligently to prepare a response to the allegations within 90 days.
"We trust that the Committee on Infractions will provide the fairness and integrity missing during the investigative process," Shalala wrote.
Miami and the NCAA have gone back and forth on the wording of the notice of allegations for several weeks, and the long-awaited letter was nearly delivered last month. That's when the NCAA acknowledged that some mistakes were made by its own enforcement department. And that resulted in some allegations coming out of the letter.
It also led to yet another delay in the process, which many at Miami believe has dragged on for way too long.
"This cannot end quickly enough," Miami coach football Al Golden said earlier this month.
Virtually all the allegations revolve around football and men's basketball, though several other sports are mentioned for extremely minor reasons. Three former Miami assistant coaches are also alleged to have been in violation of what's commonly known as NCAA 10.1, which covers the "principles of ethical conduct."
Within about six months of Miami originally bringing the information it had on Shapiro forward, an NCAA investigation was quietly underway, and the story became widely known in August 2011 after Shapiro provided Yahoo Sports with details of what he claimed to have given dozens of athletes, recruits and coaches over an eight-year period.
Among the gifts Shapiro alleged to provide: Memorabilia, cash amounts both large and small, dinners, strip-club trips, prostitutes, and even an abortion.
Shalala, however, labeled most of those alleged benefits as "sensationalized media accounts."
"Despite their efforts over two and a half years, the NCAA enforcement staff could not find evidence of prostitution, expensive cars for players, expensive dinners paid for by boosters, player bounty payments, rampant alcohol and drug use, or the alleged hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gifts given to student-athletes, as reported in the media," Shalala wrote. "The fabricated story played well ? the facts did not."
Several Miami football and men's basketball players have either served suspensions, paid restitution or both in the past two years after their involvement with Shapiro was discovered. Apparently upset with how people he thought were friends turned their back on him following his conviction for the Ponzi operation, Shapiro vowed that he would take down the program, and his attorney ? a Miami alum ? was willing to help the NCAA's cause.
Documents released Monday by the NCAA showed that Shapiro's attorney, Maria Elena Perez, offered to assist investigators working the Miami case by using subpoena power to depose witnesses under the guise of a bankruptcy case. NCAA enforcement officials accepted her offer, even feeding her questions to ask for at least one of the depositions, and records show they paid at least $19,000 for her work ? though she billed them for three times that much.
"Had I realized I was dealing with, what is in my opinion ... such an incompetent regulatory institution, I would have never allowed Mr. Shapiro to have had any type of contact with the NCAA ? period," Perez wrote in a text message to AP.
Shawn Eichorst, the Nebraska athletic director who held the same role at Miami for some of the NCAA probe, declined comment. Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt, who was the AD at Miami for some of the time when Shapiro was a booster, did not respond to a request for comment.
Shalala also said former Miami athletic director Paul Dee, who held the job before Hocutt, also was not interviewed by the NCAA before his death in May 2012. Dee also was a member of the NCAA's committee on infractions, most notably when sanctions ? including a two-year bowl ban, scholarship reductions and vacating victories ? came down against Southern California in 2010, stemming from improper benefits given to then-Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush by sports marketers. Dee chaired the committee at the time, then saying "higher-profile players require higher-profile monitoring."
"The NCAA enforcement staff failed, even after repeated requests, to interview many essential witnesses of great integrity who could have provided firsthand testimony, including, unbelievably, Paul Dee, who has since passed away, but who served as Miami Athletic Director during many of the years that violations were alleged to have occurred," Shalala wrote. "How could a supposedly thorough and fair investigation not even include the Director of Athletics?"
Any allegations that came from those depositions were taken out of the Miami case, the NCAA said on Monday when it unveiled the scope of its alliance with Perez and acknowledged that missteps were made. The NCAA's vice president of enforcement, who oversaw the Miami probe, has been ousted, and some investigators who worked the case are also no longer with the association.
That prompted Miami to lash out strongly at the NCAA on Monday, with Shalala saying "the lengthy and already flawed investigation has demonstrated a disappointing pattern of unprofessional and unethical behavior."
The NCAA declined comment Tuesday about Shalala's remarks, which included a demand that Miami not face any additional sanctions.
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