A former Arizona assistant basketball coach alleged in secretly recorded conversations that head coach Sean Miller was paying future No. 1 overall NBA draft pick Deandre Ayton $10,000 a month and was "taking care of" other players.
FBI recordings of wiretapped phone calls between former Wildcats assistant Emanuel "Book" Richardson and aspiring sports agency executive Christian Dawkins were played Wednesday as part of a federal college basketball corruption trial in New York.
In one, recorded on June 20, 2017, Richardson discusses what he believed Miller was paying Ayton, then an incoming freshman at Arizona.
"You know what he bought per month," Richardson said of Miller.
"What he do?" Dawkins said.
"I told you, 10," Richardson said, apparent shorthand for $10,000.
Later in the conversation Dawkins said of Miller, "Hey, he's putting up some real money for them ... ."
In another call played in court Tuesday, Dawkins indicated that then-Arizona player Rawle Alkins was also receiving payments, saying, "Sean's taking care of Rawle and them."
In February 2018, ESPN cited unidentified sources in reporting that the FBI had recorded conversations between Miller and Dawkins in which Miller discussed paying $100,000 to secure Ayton's services with the Wildcats. Miller denied the report at the time, and so far no such recording has surfaced.
Dawkins and Adidas employee Merl Code are facing six charges that include conspiracy to commit bribery and honest services wire fraud.
Richardson and two other coaches previously charged have accepted plea bargains. Richardson, Tony Bland of USC and Lamont Evans of Oklahoma State all were terminated by their schools after being arrested during the investigation that became public in September 2017.
In a related case, Code, Dawkins and Jim Gatto, another Adidas employee, were sentenced to prison in March after being convicted last year of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with paying families of players at Louisville, Kansas and North Carolina State.
Gatto received nine months in prison while Code and Dawkins each got six months. They are expected to appeal.
