78 Sunday,March 29, 2020 DAILY NEWSNYDailyNews.com
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With no March Madness to pla-
cate college basketball fanatics
due to the coronavirus, there is
one piece of TV sports viewing
that should hold your interest
whether you’re a college hoops
fan or not.
HBO will air “The Scheme”
on Tuesday (9 p.m. EST). Di-
rected by Pat Kondelis, the doc-
umentary digs into the infa-
mous two-year FBI sting opera-
tion that caught college coaches
accepting bribes for elite play-
ers.
It was not head coaches
caught up in the investigation,
but assistant coaches, a finan-
cier and one Christian Dawkins
of Saginaw, Mich. The son of a
highly respected high school
basketball coach, Dawkins part-
nered with others and accepted
money to funnel to high school
players to colleges that had con-
tacts with sneaker giant Adidas.
Dawkins was arrested on
September 26, 2017, along with
James Gatto, director of Global
Sports Marketing for Adidas;
Merl Code, Adidas; Munish
Sood, Dawkins’ partner and
Jonathan Augustine, program
director of Adidas-backed 1
Family AAU program in Flor-
ida.
Gatto was sentenced to nine
months in prison. Code, six
months. Sood was hit with a
$25,000 fine and no jail time.
Augustine’s charges were
dropped.
Dawkins was found guilty in
federal court in the Southern
District of New York of fraud
and bribery charges and sen-
tenced to a year and a day in jail.
He was originally looking at a
maximum of 200 years in jail.
The convicted felon is appeal-
ing the verdict handed down
from two trials.
Also convicted and sen-
tenced were Book Richardson,
former assistant coach, Uni-
ve r s i t y o f A r i z o n a ( t h r e e
months in jail; two years of pro-
bation), Tony Bland, assistant
coach, USC (two years of proba-
tion; 100 hours community
service), Lamont Evans, former
assistant coach at South Car-
olina and Oklahoma
State (three-month prison
sentence) and former Auburn
assistant coach Chuck Person
(pleaded guilty to one count of
conspiracy to commit bribery;
2 00 hours of community serv-
ice and two years of probation).
They were sentenced last year.
Richardson had received
$20,000 under the table pay-
ments while Bland received less
than $4,000.
Richardson told Tucson.com
after his sentencing via direct
message: “I have no knowledge
of Sean Miller paying players or
attempting to pay them. I was
on trial. No one else.”
The main coaches the FBI
wanted Dawkins to give up
were Miller of Arizona and Rick
Pitino, then at Louisville and
now the newly named head
coach at Iona.
The documentary has audio
of Miller and LSU head coach
Will Wade talking freely with
Dawkins about various players.
When the defense subpoenaed
the coaches, the prosecutors
said no because there’s nothing
on the tapes about the coaches
asking for or accepting money.
No head coaches were on trial.
The outgoing 27-year-old
Dawkins doesn’t want anyoneholding a pity party for him. He
knows what he did, but can’t
believe what the government
went through to catch him.
“I’m still surprised they actu-
ally charged me,” he says, speak-
ing to the Daily News from his
home in Los Angeles. “People’s
lives got ruined. The crime is
getting caught. There’s numer-
ous infraction cases with the
NCAA and it’s not the first time
someone gave benefits for play-
ers.”
That doesn’t make it right,
but what Dawkins was trying to
do in the shady world of high
sc h o o l
basketball
wa s t o
st a r t a
sp o r t s
ag e n c y
bu s i n e s s ,
an d h e
ne e d e d
money. He
wanted to
ta k e t h e
money, de-
ve l o p t h e
agency then
funnel it to
the players
an d t e l l
them which
Ad i d a s -
backed schools to attend.
He and his partner, Sood, a
financier, found their mon-
eyman in Jeff D’Angelo, who
said he was into real estate
when in fact he was an under-
cover FBI agent along with his
partner Jill Bailey.
Marty Blazer was a partner
of Dawkins and Sood who also
paid players until he became a
cooperating witness for the FBI.
He was looking at 67 years until
he got one year of probation andhad to make restitution to the
tune of roughly $1.5 million.
“He should have gotten 10
years,” Dawkins says in the doc-
umentary.
Even though he’s a convicted
felon, Dawkins prays some
changes come out of this.
“There are rules on the books
be c a u s e t h e y we re i m p l e -
mented by athletic directors
and administrators and the
powerful coaches,” he says.
“The NCAA lobbied politicians
and politics is a much dirtiergame than college
basketball.
“At some point
Congress is going
to have to change. If the co-
ronavirus does one thing it
shows you can’t have separate
rules in separate states.”
The other point Dawkins
wants noted is the racial aspect
to this scandal. The NCAA
doesn’t pay any taxes as a non-
profit business, yet they rake in
millions. Dawkins wonders
about the young, mainly black
athletes who have nothing, and
see the money, as illegal as it
may be, to help their families.
“You have African-AmericanPAY THE
PLAYER$!
Dawkins, sentenced to prison
in college scandal, says
hoopsters deserve to get cash
BY TONY PAIGE
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS