By Adam Zagoria |Special to the Arizona Daily Star
After becoming the first coach sentenced to prison time in the ongoing college basketball bribery scandal, Book Richardson addressed the question of whether UA head coach Sean Miller knew if players were being paid.
Richardson was sentenced to three months in prison and two years of probation by U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos on Thursday. Richardson has a surrender date of July 18; he must also forfeit $20,000 he accepted in payments.
Richardson, a UA assistant from 2009 until his 2017 arrest, was asked outside the courthouse if Miller knew whether players were being paid.
“You gotta ask him that,” Richardson told reporters. “He’s not on trial, I was on trial.”
Richardson later issued a statement via direct message to Star correspondent Adam Zagoria. It read: “I have no knowledge of Sean Miller paying players or attempting to pay them … I was on trial no one else. Again I apologize to the University of Arizona, President Robbins and the kind and great people of Tucson for this. Thank you Tucson and all the Wildcats across the world!”
