College basketball trial wiretap audio referencing Arizona released by ESPN

Wiretap audio that references the Arizona Wildcats was released by ESPN after the guilty verdicts of the first trial in the federal college basketball investigation.

Arizona had already been mentioned prior to and during the trial.

One of the wiretaps released appears to reveal that former Adidas representative Merl Code tells company executive James Gatto that Arizona allegedly offered recruit Nassir Little $150,000 while discussing whether Adidas would match an offer to send Little to Miami instead.

“The problem is, Arizona’s offered the kid 150, and we’re trying to keep him from going to one of their schools,” Code said. “So, it was brought to me through (former AAU director Brad Augustine) and (agent Christian Dawkins), who said, ‘Hey, do you think Jim would be able to keep him at Miami?’ because they really want the kid.”

In another of the recordings, Dawkins — who was linked to Arizona in ESPN’s initial report that led to a brief leave of absence for head coach Sean Miller — tells travel-ball director T.J. Gassnola that Little “was going to (expletive) go to Arizona.”

Gassnola responded by saying that he didn’t “know where that Arizona thing came in.”

Gatto, Dawkins and Code were convicted Wednesday of conspiracy to commit wire fraud for funneling money and recruits to Louisville and Kansas on Wednesday. All three will be sentenced on March 5, but the corruption case doesn’t end there.

Former NBA star and Auburn assistant Chuck Person will stand trial in February. Former assistant coaches Emanuel “Book” Richardson of Arizona, Tony Bland of Southern Cal and Lamont Evans of Oklahoma State go to trial in April.

All are accused of funneling apparel company money to recruits and their families.

They could be facing a difficult defense with Wednesday’s verdict now that a precedent of fraud has been set.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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