Friday-Palooza: Austin travel linked to Wichard through Amis AND two of Little’s plates came from an auto dealer now in Federal Prison

UNC Scandal64

Late this afternoon two major stories broke almost simultaneously.  First, this WRAL piece discusses the financial details surrounding a trip Marvin made to California in 2009 from March 7-14.  The media is obviously digging into those phone records and figuring some things out.  Here is an excerpt that gives you a feel about what went on:

Wichard, Balmer and Austin claimed a coach from Austin’s high school paid for the flights for each trip Austin took to California. The coach, Todd Amis, told investigators that Wichard reimbursed his expenses.

According to the warrant, Amis showed investigators a canceled check from Wichard’s ProTect Management.

Blake’s cellphone records show that he and Amis began exchanging calls on March 3. They spoke four times. In one instance, Blake called Wichard three minutes after he spoke to Amis.

Amis and Blake spoke twice on March 6, for a total of nine minutes the day before Austin traveled to California. On March 11, the two spoke again for 12 minutes during two phone calls.

Wow!  A canceled check!  Love it!  I think the “new news” here is the phone call record that suggests that Blake *could* have known and/or set up the Austin trip financials with Wichard.

This next item will blow your mind.  Again from WRAL, this piece talks about some of the plates on Little’s car:

Parking ticket records associated with the vehicle registered to the Little family has been cited using at least three different tags, and one of the plates doesn’t exist according to the Department of Motor Vehicles. The other two plates are 30 day temporary tags issued by dealers when someone buys a car.

Dealers cannot issue temporary tags to the same vehicle for consecutive months but the parking records show tags were issued for the months of March and April 2009.

Both of the 30 day tags trace back to 919 Imports in Durham, according to the DMV.

This auto dealer has since closed and business owner, Shawn E. Brown, is now serving a federal sentence for money laundering.

Little’s father told WRAL Wednesday there is no reason the car should have had multiple plates

 

I don’t even know what to say anymore.


Stay tuned for updates.

UNC Scandal

64 Responses to Friday-Palooza: Austin travel linked to Wichard through Amis AND two of Little’s plates came from an auto dealer now in Federal Prison

  1. BJD95 06/17/2011 at 9:44 PM #

    I don’t care whether they pretend not to care. A ten-year streak of shutting out the Holes would make my day/life. TOB would have so much fun he wouldn’t be able to retire.

  2. choppack1 06/17/2011 at 9:47 PM #

    Gene – that’s true about SMU – but the NCAA has indicated they don’t want to go there again. Of course, the NCAA, like the classic intellectual is torn by the impact of the punishment doing exactly what it was supposed to do…Instead, they’d rather enforce stuff like we enforce our borders…Do it half-arse, only grabbing the worst offenders after they’ve done something really bad or enforcing it on the plain unlucky.

    Cleaning up college sports is terribly easy – but it would cost the schools money, so it won’t be done.

    I’ll be real interested to see what happens here. The biggest news of the day to me is the issue w/ Butch’s cell #. If in fact, he never used his university issued cell phone, then his personal cell should be fair game since he was obviously using it for bidness…That my friends, could really be Pandora’s box.

  3. ppack3 06/17/2011 at 10:01 PM #

    With regards to the parking tickets that were issued to plates that were owned by 919 Imports…

    Parking tix follow the car, not the driver, as explained in the WRAL story, right? My question is, who paid the fines off? Take Greg Little’s streak of three tix in three days with three different plates, for instance. Little’s father says that there was no reason that the car should’ve had any tag but the correct tag, on the vehicle. So, I guess it’s obvious that he didn’t pay the fine on what is supposed to be the car that’s registered to himself! So, who paid the fines? Again, if they were paid by Little, I’d be really surprised, considering his utter lack of respect for authority.

    You can apply that last statement to just about every one of the players that keep popping up during this investigation.

    I’m sure they all rushed right down and cleared those fines up, just after meeting with Blake, and after Blake called Wichard and after the money was wired to their High School coaches who then gave the money to the kingpin, drug pushing car dealers who then wandered by campus for a handshake. At least, I think that’s how it went.

    Then again, some of them didn’t even bother.

  4. highstick 06/17/2011 at 10:19 PM #

    The current 919 may be different, but the old 919 LLC is a “goner”. But, I think there’s some time frames that have to elapse before using the exact same name. Could be ABC Corporation dba 919 Imports.

  5. choppack1 06/17/2011 at 10:32 PM #

    Just been doing some browsing of NCAA infraction reports. First off, it’s amazing that lots of schools are self-reporting out there – and small ones too.

    Here’s some gems that should have UNC-Ch a little worried:

    From Arizona State’s infractions report:
    As the enforcement staff noted and the committee agreed, an important aspect of institutional control is self-detection. While it is true that no member institution can always self-detect every violation, in this case, the institution did not self-detect any of the violations.

    http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/a9a93a80450ec5b9958fb7c8c7999200/20101215+ASU+Public+Rpt.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=a9a93a80450ec5b9958fb7c8c7999200

    And the phone calls after NCAA contact come up in this note on Chattanooga’s infraction report:

    The second incident also occurred in September 2009 when he spoke to prospect 9 (then a student athlete) about the calls, and the final occurrence happened in February 2010, when the head men’s basketball coach notified prospect 9 that the enforcement staff planned to question him about the violations in Finding B-2-b-(4) during an upcoming interview.

  6. Lunatic Fringe 06/17/2011 at 10:36 PM #

    Personally, I am disappointed in the lack of ‘cat pictures” by OMD in this post. tsk tsk

  7. TAEdisonHokie 06/17/2011 at 10:44 PM #

    hightstick – Gotcha. Understood.

  8. logarithm 06/17/2011 at 11:01 PM #

    I think most of this is useful in two ways:

    1. It provides more piles for the media to dig into and make connections to find the whopper(s) we’re all hoping for. Piles that they were not forthcoming in disclosing.
    2. It shows more and more wrong doing that Butch “did not know” about, making him and the administration look more and more sincerely ignorant and conscientiously stupid, lacking institutional control.

    I’m hoping it elevates to the level that Butch is damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. And I hope his recruits leave with him.

  9. packpride_ie94 06/17/2011 at 11:26 PM #

    ^^^^choppack, I found the following 2 sentences the most interesting in that ASU Public Infractions report:

    The violations were the result of poor record keeping, failure to monitor and a cavalier attitude on the part of the former head baseball coach to NCAA regulations. As a result, the committee finds the former head coach failed to promote an atmosphere for compliance and the institution lacked institutional control.

    I know the NCAA says “no two investigations are equal”, but if that’s the standard there’s NO WAY the LOIC tag isn’t forthcoming for Tarheel football.

  10. wolfonthehill 06/18/2011 at 6:23 AM #

    So what WOULD need to come out for unc-ch to get hit with the LOIC tag?

    Beyond improper financial benefits from agents, improper educational assistance, free use of automobiles, the university allowing them to enroll in classes despite outstanding parking tickets, the assistant coach being an agent, and the head coach proclaiming knowledge of none of the above… I mean… wtf would it take???

  11. tuckerdorm1983 06/18/2011 at 6:59 AM #

    look, call me crazy but I like the song “Friday” or any other day as long as that is the day that the NCAA drops the bomb on those friggin lying sons of biscuit eaters mutherflipping cheaters over there in chapel hill. Darn them the heck, thats right I said it “darn them to heck”

    Ned Flanders

  12. choppack1 06/18/2011 at 7:18 AM #

    wolfonthehill – I think there were 2 big revelations yesterday that put LOIC firmly back into play:
    1. Butch’s school provided phone having ZERO calls on it.
    2. The apparent collusion between Blake, Witchard and Amis when it came to Marvin’s summer trip.

    None of these things in themselves is a major violation, but after reading the ASU and other reports – it’s pretty obvious that UNC should have been conducting phone audits on occassion – and this should have come up before.

    If UNC conducted a phone audit and found that Butch used his personal phone and didn’t request these records and review them – pretty big deal.

  13. choppack1 06/18/2011 at 8:37 AM #

    Regarding the insurance – keep in mind, insurance follows the car, not the tag. There’s also rules which give you coverage on a car you purchase in the policy period providing that you add it w/ in a certain amount of days…So, don’t get thrown off by that.

    The bigger issue is Butch’s and Blake’s cell phone records. Also, how they got the cars they were driving and how they paid the tickets.

    Heck, I don’t even think the guy in prison is a big deal unless he was providing Little and other the cars illegally.

    I think what really needs to be looked at are the tickets around the football practice facilities and places were the athletes live – to see how many of those vehicles belong to dealers or someone associated to the football team.

  14. BJD95 06/18/2011 at 9:04 AM #

    Agree with chop – the phone thing is huge. Doesn’t even come close to passing the smell test. They. Are. Fucked.

  15. packhammer 06/18/2011 at 9:32 AM #

    Butch Is hating life right now over the prospect of giving up his “personal cell phone” records. You have to know that he does not want to answer questions about every call he made or recieved on that phone. As Tiger Woods and Anthony Weiner will tell you, electronic facts are stubborn and painful things.

  16. ppack3 06/18/2011 at 10:01 AM #

    I agree that the phone records are absolutely huge. But with the NCAA coming off of (or into) this thing with TOSU and Tressell, finding out that UNC players were, in any way, linked to shady auto deals is not good! The NCAA could feel much more inclined to delve into the matter, and really push the issue. All of this, of course, is in addition to all of the other shady phone records to be looked into.

    All in all, I don’t care what sends this ship over the edge, as long as it happens! By my way of thinking, the more black marks the better! It’ll just make the Golenbach-espue fiction book on UNC Football that much juicier!

  17. ppack3 06/18/2011 at 10:02 AM #

    ^ BTW, I really need to get started on that book.

  18. highstick 06/18/2011 at 11:10 AM #

    I just added the NC Secretary of State info in the photos if anyone is interested.

    Note the Capital Blvd address in Raleigh in the original Articles of Organization. Was this fellow also operating in Raleigh??

  19. BureauOfMines 06/18/2011 at 11:25 AM #

    I’m with wolfonthehill. If all that’s come out hasn’t demonstrated a lack of institutional control, what more would it take?

    We are looking at crookedness and corruption that stinks as high as it goes.

  20. Gowolves 06/18/2011 at 2:04 PM #

    I am not sure that the tickets follow the car. I loaned my car to a friend in college and he got a speeding ticket. My insurance didnt go up. He had to go to court and it never affected me. It may be different for moving violations(speeding) versus parking tickets though.

  21. Rochester 06/18/2011 at 2:59 PM #

    Come on, guys. Butch didn’t know he had a phone, so how could he make any calls on it?

  22. lsutton5144 06/18/2011 at 3:10 PM #

    GoWolves,
    Moving violations, in your case speeding tickets, follow the driver because the authorities know who the driver is. Parking tickets follow the vehicle, or registered owner, because more than likely there is no one present when the ticket is being written. Make sense?

  23. IamGumbyDammit 06/18/2011 at 3:12 PM #

    wolfonthehill Says:
    June 18th, 2011 at 6:23 am

    So what WOULD need to come out for unc-ch to get hit with the LOIC tag?

    Beyond improper financial benefits from agents, improper educational assistance, free use of automobiles, the university allowing them to enroll in classes despite outstanding parking tickets, the assistant coach being an agent, and the head coach proclaiming knowledge of none of the above… I mean… wtf would it take???

    Clearly it will take a dead hooker in a trunk (and even then they have to be caught killing the hooker – which some dumbass over there would likely take pictures during the act and tweet them)

  24. runwiththepack 06/18/2011 at 3:24 PM #

    Wow, Rochester!

    Butch didn’t know he had an official UNC-CH phone?!

    Then I expect he felt very comfortable on the “other” phone(s), thinking he was safe.

    Aha! But he might have us snookered. He might have a 3rd or 4th phone, (if he’s a good chess player), to make his compromising calls with. The “other” phone could be just a decoy. Doh!

    This is kinda like a James Bond movie!

  25. runwiththepack 06/18/2011 at 3:25 PM #

    Or, maybe Butch is NOT a chess player. Let’s hope.

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