Former NC State coach Mark Gottfried responds to the NCAA’s Notice of Allegations
The response to the NCAA’s Notice of Allegations submitted by Mark Gottfried argues the former N.C. State basketball coach has been denied due process and questions the validity of the evidence in the case centered around violations connected to former Wolfpack star Dennis Smith Jr.
Gottfried and his attorneys responded to the NCAA on Monday. The News & Observer obtained a copy of the 41-page rebuttal on Wednesday, via a records request of N.C. State.
Gottfried’s response is separate from N.C. State because he is no longer employed by the school (he was fired during the 2016-17 season) and because he is individually assigned a “Level I” violation for a failure to monitor former assistant coach Orlando Early. There are also minor violations related to ticket distribution connected to Early, and the NCAA says Gottfried failed to monitor. Gottfried refutes those allegations in the response.
The NCAA has accused Early of being directly involved in a $40,000 payment, provided by a former Adidas associate, to Smith during the recruiting process in 2015. Early was Gottfried’s top assistant for six seasons at N.C. State, from 2011 through ‘17, and therefore Gottfried was responsible for Early’s potential violations.
Gottfried, in his second season as the head coach at Cal State-Northridge, faces a potential “show-cause” penalty from the NCAA. His case is on the same timetable as N.C. State’s. The NCAA will have 60 days to respond to his response and then a hearing will be scheduled with the Committee on Infractions.
Scott Tompsett, a specialist in NCAA law from Kansas City, and Elliot Abrams, of Cheshire Parker Schneider in Raleigh, prepared Gottfried’s response and will represent him at the hearing.
They wrote in their response to the NCAA that a “substantial portion of the allegations” should be withdrawn by the NCAA and that “the evidence in this matter establishes that Gottfried fulfilled his duty to monitor and that the allegations claiming otherwise are unfounded and should be rejected.”
Gottfried’s lawyers began their argument by pointing out the NCAA had “prejudged” Gottfried and violated the general conceptions of due process. Specifically, they noted that NCAA executives Kevin Lennon and Stan Wilcox made public comments before the investigative phase of the case had been complete.
“The NCAA is using its awesome and untethered power to call (Gottfried) a cheater,” Gottfried’s lawyers wrote in the response. “And they have done so before the enforcement staff had even completed its investigation. That is not right, and it violates the clear dictates and overarching spirit of the NCAA infractions process.”
Gottfried was interviewed by the NCAA enforcement staff on May 8, for nearly three hours, the response notes. Lennon, the NCAA’s vice president of governance, made his comment about institutions that “have violated NCAA rules” in May. Wilcox, the NCAA vice president for regulatory affairs, said in June that the NCAA was “moving forward” after the completion of the federal trials in New York and “you’ll see consequences.”
The Notice of Allegations was issued to N.C. State in early July.
Issues with TJ Gassnola’s testimony
As in N.C. State’s case with the NCAA, an alleged $40,000 payment from T.J. Gassnola, a former Adidas associate, to Smith during the recruiting process is at the heart of Gottfried’s Level I allegation.
The NCAA, in its NOA, wrote that Gottfried did not demonstrate that he monitored Early, specifically during the recruitment of Smith.
The NCAA’s case is built primarily off of Gassnola’s testimony during the fraud trial of former Adidas executive Jim Gatto in federal court in New York in Oct. 2018. Gatto was found guilty this past March but the case is under appeal.
Because that case is under appeal, Gottfried’s lawyers wrote in their response that they believe the NCAA’s own rules prevent them from using information from the case as evidence.
As N.C. State did in its response, Gottfried’s lawyers also argued that Gassnola’s testimony did not prove that Smith or his family received the payment from Gassnola. They also noted that in an interview with N.C. State’s compliance department in April that Smith denied receiving the payment.
“Absent evidence that the funds were actually provided to the Smith Family (and such evidence is indeed lacking, because a mere statement of intent is not sufficient evidence from which to conclude that the intended action occurred) there is no recruiting violation, and thus no violation that Gottfried can be presumed responsible for,” Gottfried’s lawyers wrote in their response.
Adidas ‘Black Opps’
In addition to the procedural arguments, Gottfried’s lawyers advanced a logical argument about Gottfried’s ability to monitor Early.
They noted that during the Gatto trial the Adidas participants referred to the scheme to pay recruits, like Smith and others at Kansas and Louisville, out of high school as “confidential Black Opps.”
The NCAA Eligibility Center’s professional staff, which cleared Smith before the 2016-17 season, did not uncover the alleged payments, Gottfried’s lawyers wrote.
And, Gottfried’s lawyers wrote in the response: only after an “extensive, expensive, multi-year federal investigation involving numerous FBI agents, including undercover agents engaged in a long-running sting operation, as well as the use of wire taps, search warrants, grand jury subpoenas, offers of tremendous sentencing leniency in exchange for the cooperation of co-conspirators, including Gassnola, was the federal government able to uncover the scheme.”
Given all it took for the FBI to uncover the information, Gottfried’s lawyers wrote in their response: “(We) are left wondering what the (NCAA) staff thinks Gottfried should have or could have done differently to either prevent the alleged illicit payment to Smith or to detect it.”
NC State response to NCAA NOA
Mark Gottfried Response to NCAA NOA
This story was originally published December 11, 2019 at 4:18 PM with the headline "Former NC State coach Mark Gottfried responds to the NCAA’s Notice of Allegations."
