Book Richardson

Former UA basketball assistant Book Richardson was emotional Tuesday when he told a judge he knew he broke the law.

ESPN posted a list of recordings and transcripts that were used as evidence in the recently concluded trial involving three figures around college basketball.

Arizona is mentioned in two of the conversations in reference to five-star recruit Nassir Little, over issues that were previously reported in the September 2017 federal complaint and in this month's trial.

In one conversation involving Little, Adidas rep Merl Code tells Adidas executive James Gatto that, "The problem is, Arizona's offered the kid 150, and we're trying to keep him from going to one of their schools."

There's also a longer conversation that begins with former travel-ball director T.J. Gassnola telling agent Christian Dawkins that five-star recruit Brian Bowen was given $100,000 and that "you can get the same thing to this person."

In that one, Dawkins then appears to be telling Gassnola of Little that "the kid was going to (expletive) go to Arizona." During that conversation, Gassnola later says he didn't "know where that Arizona thing came in."

In response, Dawkins appears to be telling Gassnola of a conversation that he had with 1Family travel-ball director Brad Augustine, saying he told Augustine that he can't be asking for too much from Adidas if he also sends a top player to a Nike school. Both Little and then-five-star 7-footer Balsa Koprivica played for 1Family, and both were at one point recruiting targets of Arizona and many other top programs.

The Washington Post reported in April that fraud charges against Augustine were dropped when he told federal prosecutors he never intended to pay the players and kept the payouts that were made for himself.

ESPN has listed the wiretaps and transcripts that were released here. (Note: Audio and transcripts include expletives and racial slurs.)


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Contact sports reporter Bruce Pascoe at 573-4146 or bpascoe@tucson.com. On Twitter @brucepascoe