Prosecutors handling the corruption case of NCAA Division-I basketball coaches accused of bribery have collected hundreds of hours of secretly taped phone calls, it emerged on Wednesday.
Manhattan federal prosecutor Noah Solowiejczyk told Judge Lewis Kaplan on Wednesday that his office has collected 57 hours of “pertinent” calls from the FBI tapping the phone of Emanuel “Book” Richardson, former assistant coach at Arizona.
That’s on top of dozens of hours of taped calls from other defendants, including former Adidas executive James Gatto, ex-sports agent Christian Dawkins and onetime NBA star Chuck “The Rifleman” Connors Person.
Richardson pleaded not guilty to the charges on Wednesday along with former assistant coaches Lamont Evans of Oklahoma State University and Anthony Bland of the University of Southern California.