Louisville accuser says she was told Rick Pitino knew
A self-proclaimed prostitute says she was told that University of Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino knew she and other escorts were being paid to have sex with players and recruits.
"How can it be going on for four years, that many people be involved and that many people see what's going on and Rick Pitino doesn't know anything about it?" Katina Powell said in a September interview with Indianapolis Business Journal reporter Anthony Schoettle.
"You have players that are very, very loyal to Pitino," she said. "And if they thought anything was wrong or anyone was going to get in trouble, I'm pretty sure they would have gone back to report to Pitino. When I would ask (U of L staffer Andre McGee), 'Does Pitino know about this?' he would laugh and say, 'Rick knows about everything.'"
In a press conference on Friday, Pitino denied any knowledge of the alleged activity, saying he first heard of the claims when the publishing company for Powell's book, "Breaking Cardinal Rules: Basketball and the Escort Queen," reached out to U of L through Indiana University's athletics department to identify a player in one of Powell's pictures.
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A U of L spokesman, reached for comment Monday regarding Powell's claims about Pitino, referred the Courier-Journal back to Pitino's statements in Friday's press conference.
Pitino denied knowledge of the situation again Monday in an interview with ESPN.
"Not myself, not one player, not one trainer, not one assistant, not one person knew anything about any of this," Pitino told ESPN. "If anyone did, it would have been stopped on a dime. Not one person knew anything about it."
In the book, Powell says she and other escorts — including her own teenage daughters — provided services to U of L players, recruits or their guardians 22 times over the course of four years, running up a bill north of $10,000.
She claims in the book that McGee, a former U of L player, graduate assistant and director of basketball operations, set all of the visits up and paid her for them.
McGee, now an assistant coach at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, has denied the allegations through his lawyer, Louisville-based attorney Scott Cox. McGee has been placed on administrative leave by his new school.
Powell told the IBJ, a sister company to the book's publisher, that she's "been up front and told the truth from the beginning."
"This story is the truth. This is what happened for four long years," she said. "All I can do is tell my story and hope people understand where I'm coming from and why I told my story."
Pitino is mentioned in Powell's book, but her comments to the IBJ are the only time she has suggested that the coach knew.
Pitino, who has been at U of L since 2001, said he spoke to 12 former assistant coaches and several other video and support staffers who worked at U of L between 2010 and 2014, and none said they knew about Powell or her claims.