Nevin Shapiro, key figure in Miami scandal, says NCAA ‘managed to screw this thing up’
Part of Miami's defense over the accusations that booster Nevin Shapiro gave impermissible benefits to players was that the NCAA was building a case around the word of a "convicted felon."
Now that convicted felon is ripping the NCAA, saying the NCAA has screwed up the case. And Shapiro is also having his credibility attacked again after admitting he committed perjury in a criminal trial of a South Florida businessman.
First, the Miami Herald wrote that Shapiro sought out the newspaper to rip the NCAA for botching the case against the Hurricanes.
“I gave them the body, the weapon and the evidence, and the NCAA still managed to screw this thing up somehow,” he said, according to the Herald.
Shapiro wasn't done trashing the NCAA.
"The NCAA hadn’t yet seen something like this and was incapable to pull this investigation off properly with what they had within their means to do so…
“Who can really take the NCAA serious at this point? Or should? This investigation could have changed the landscape of policing collegiate sports, not… becoming a colossal joke as it has become…. If I had to do this all over again, I would have just kept to myself and allowed the NCAA to sink in their own stew for how ever many more years."
He told the Herald that the NCAA should have requested a federal investigation because the case was too big for its compliance office to handle.
So yes, Shapiro – whose claims to Yahoo! Sports about illegal benefits to Miami players make up the case against the Hurricanes, and is serving a 20-year prison sentence for securities fraud – went on a long rant to say the NCAA can't be taken seriously. Good times.
Then the Herald wrote a story that Shapiro had sent a sent a letter to a Miami federal judge that he lied in his testimony against Juan Rene Caro, who was charged with running a $132 million check-cashing scheme and is now serving 18 years in prison. Shapiro said in the letter that Caro didn't get a fair trial because Shapiro lied on the witness stand, according to the Herald.
The Herald said Miami has asked the NCAA infractions committee to ignore any allegation that is uncorroborated by anyone but Shapiro, and the news that he has admitted to perjury would seemingly strengthen Miami's request. But as the Herald says, nobody knows how Shapiro's credibility will be weighed by the committee.
No matter how the Miami case ends up (and Shapiro also told the Herald that, "I can assure you that this will not be the last of this story from my end"), it will end up as one of the messiest in the history of NCAA enforcement.
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