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Louisville escort says she contacted NCAA in March

Seton Hall v Louisville

Getty Images

Getty Images

Katina Powell, the Louisville madam, who co-authored the book “Breaking Cardinal Rules: Basketball and the Escort Queen,” released digitally this past weekend, made her second notable statement on Monday.

Earlier in the day, Powell, who claims Andre McGee, an ex-Louisville staffer, hired her repeatedly to provide strippers and prostitutes for Louisville players and recruits, says head coach Rick Pitino, “knew about everything.” In the evening, the Indianapolis Business Journal, sister company of the book’s publisher, posted a story in which Powell claims she reached out to the NCAA in mid-March.

“I called the NCAA in mid-March, I spoke with a young white guy, and I was telling him that I had a story about a college that was trading sex and all that stuff for money,” Powell told IBJ in September.

But her call to the NCAA’s main switchboard number at its headquarters was dismissed without action, she said.

“[The man who answered the phone] said he’s not allowed to take a story from somebody on the outside—you know, ‘It’s heresay, I’m not doing that, I’m not taking the story.’ I asked if there was anyone else I could possibly tell my story to, and he said, ‘No, there’s no one else. We can’t take outside stories.’ He hung up. I hung up.”


A week later, she reportedly contacted the IBJ about publishing the tell-all book.

Pitino said in a press conference on Friday evening, that he questioned current and former assistant coaches, grad assistants, video coordinators, etc., all of whom claimed to have no knowledge of the allegations made in the book. McGee, who is currently in his second season as an assistant coach at UMKC, has been put on administrative leave.

Chuck Smrt, who spent 17 years on the NCAA Enforcement Staff, has been hired by the university to conduct an independent investigation.

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