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North Carolina

Records show high legal bills for UNC during scandal

Published: 2012-07-11 18:22:00
Updated: 2012-07-12 06:02:00

Updated at 6:02 a.m.

Chapel Hill, N.C. ? The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill spent nearly $67,000 in legal services and fees in a three-month span in 2010 while dealing with the fallout of NCAA violations and an academic scandal, according to a 208-page release Wednesday.

The heavily redacted documents also shed some light on some of the academic improprieties that were going on between members of the football team and an unnamed tutor.

Archive: UNC football investigation

In one email exchange, an unidentified student-athlete reaches out to a tutor saying, ?Please help. I?m going down,? with a two-and-a-half page, single-spaced paper attached.

A response to the email shortly thereafter reads, ?I looked over your paper, and expanded it in a lot of areas!!! You are now at 8 ? pages!!!?

In a Statement of Facts compiled by the university, the student-athlete said he worked with the unnamed tutor ?approximately 20-25 times? including getting assistance on 10 to 12 papers even though he was only questioned on two of them.

In a deposition on Sept. 8, Amy Herman, associate athletic director for compliance at UNC, said that it was a search of select football players' email accounts in the summer of 2010 that led them to suspect academic problems on the team.

In a June 2, 2011, notice of allegations sent out by the NCAA, former football player Michael McAdoo was declared ineligible for receiving improper assistance from tutor Jennifer Wiley "on multiple assignments across several academic terms." McAdoo was later found to have heavily plagiarized at least one paper while at UNC. More UNC Stories

McAdoo has since moved on to the NFL, but he is appealing the November dismissal of his lawsuit that seeks damages after he was ruled ineligible for his senior season.

According to the documents released Wednesday, UNC filed nearly a dozen Requested Reinstatement forms to the NCAA as a result of unethical conduct, extra benefit and preferential treatment violations in regards to academic improprieties.

The most recent documents were made public in response to a public records request made by multiple media outlets, including Capitol Broadcasting Co., the parent company of WRALSportsFan They are only a portion of the requested documents leading up to a July 19 hearing on a joint lawsuit that lists former athletics director Dick Baddour, former head football coach Butch Davis, Chancellor Holden Thorp and Director of Public Safety Jeff McCracken as defendants.

The lawsuit still seeks communications between the law firm and the university, as well as recordings in their possession, an unredacted copy of UNC?s submission to the NCAA sent in September and records of Davis? personal phone that was used for university business.

Most Recent Comments

RE: Records show high legal bills for UNC during scandal

Biggest scandal? Really? Really?
Sandusky??
- Posted by unc70
He just happened to be a football coach. But that scandal really was not sports-related.?
- Posted by TruthBKnown Returns
I think most people would disagree with you on this one. If an athlete commmits a crime it IS a sports story. The same has to be true when coaches commit crimes.?
- Posted by heelsforever
If the school protected Sandusky in order to protect the football program, then you're right. It then becomes a sports scandal, and not just a sicko sex scandal that involves a guy that happened to be a football coach at his day job.
If that is the case, then it is a worse sports scandal than Carolina's is.
Maybe I'm thinking in terms of "pure sports scandal" when I say this. Sandusky did stuff that was not related to sports. He committed crimes against children. He didn't cheat academically to keep recruits eligible. He didn't hook players up with agents. It's really two different types of scandals.
Now the school's part in this (the coverup) was worse if they were knowingly protecting a guy that was doing harm to young children. That would certainly make their scandal worse, because their actions were done in order to protect the football program.?
- Posted by TruthBKnown Returns

It appears you've not seen the Freeh report today. Joe and many others there were covering it up to protect the footbal program and the school at large.

RE: Records show high legal bills for UNC during scandal

I'm still waiting for WRAL and all the other "ABC" news agencies to wade in on all the other universities in North Carolina and do a in-depth investigation of those schools athletic programs, (you know email records, student records, and any other confidential information they can get), and see what they come up with. I've asked WRAL to do this three times now.?
- Posted by chuck2
They don't for the same reason the police don't search your home for drugs when there is no reason to believe you have drugs. Are there issues at other schools? Most certainly, but until they do something to draw attention to themselves there's no reason to investiagte them.?
- Posted by heelsforever

Exactly. Then it is simply a witch hunt. Sometimes witch hunts actually turn up real witches. That didn't make them OK to do.

RE: Records show high legal bills for UNC during scandal

This is the biggest scandal in the history of college sports.?
- Posted by packfan07
Biggest scandal? Really? Really?
Sandusky??
- Posted by unc70
He just happened to be a football coach. But that scandal really was not sports-related.?
- Posted by TruthBKnown Returns
I think most people would disagree with you on this one. If an athlete commmits a crime it IS a sports story. The same has to be true when coaches commit crimes.?
- Posted by heelsforever

Another example... if Lance Armstrong was killing neighbors and burying them in his back yard, that would just be a horrible scandal that happened to involve an athlete. It would not be a sports or athletic scandal, though.

Lance taking PEDs in order to win seven straight Tour De Frances is a sports scandal.

RE: Records show high legal bills for UNC during scandal

This is the biggest scandal in the history of college sports.?
- Posted by packfan07
Biggest scandal? Really? Really?
Sandusky??
- Posted by unc70
He just happened to be a football coach. But that scandal really was not sports-related.?
- Posted by TruthBKnown Returns
I think most people would disagree with you on this one. If an athlete commmits a crime it IS a sports story. The same has to be true when coaches commit crimes.?
- Posted by heelsforever

If the school protected Sandusky in order to protect the football program, then you're right. It then becomes a sports scandal, and not just a sicko sex scandal that involves a guy that happened to be a football coach at his day job.

If that is the case, then it is a worse sports scandal than Carolina's is.

Maybe I'm thinking in terms of "pure sports scandal" when I say this. Sandusky did stuff that was not related to sports. He committed crimes against children. He didn't cheat academically to keep recruits eligible. He didn't hook players up with agents. It's really two different types of scandals.

Now the school's part in this (the coverup) was worse if they were knowingly protecting a guy that was doing harm to young children. That would certainly make their scandal worse, because their actions were done in order to protect the football program.

RE: Records show high legal bills for UNC during scandal

Folks continue to ignore the pink elephant in the room: The sainted basketball program. Basketball players enrolled in those fraudulent classes. That means ineligible players and bogus banners in the Nose Dome. More legal bills to follow.