By Bruce Pascoe | Arizona Daily Star
In a victim impact statement filed in federal court in advance of Book Richardson’s upcoming sentencing, University of Arizona general counsel Laura Todd Johnson said the school is “facing the prospect of potentially significant sanctions and penalties from the NCAA flowing from the unlawful actions involved in this case.”
Johnson also wrote that the university has had to hire outside counsel at “significant expense” to conduct internal reviews and investigations and guide the UA through an NCAA investigation that “is just now getting underway in the aftermath of the criminal trial.” (The last statement supports what a UA spokesman told the Star on May 3, when he said “an NCAA investigation is underway,” but appears to contradict a UA statement released the next day that said “any reports stating that the NCAA has either ‘started’ or ‘launched’ a new investigation at the University of Arizona are entirely false”).
Although Richardson was alleged to have taken $20,000 in part to help land a recruit, Johnson wrote that the UA believes none of that money was ever given to a current player or recruit “based on all the information presently known to us.”
“Additionally, Mr. Richardson recently met with the University’s principal outside counsel and me and expressed his remorse, acceptance of responsibility, and the recognition that his failure of judgment caused significant harm to the University community, as well as to himself and his family,” Johnson wrote. “We appreciated his openness, candor, and gesture of goodwill.”
