Barton County Hit Again

[tornado]

Barton Co. CC in Kansas has had some serious problems with academic fraud, and eight people at the school have been charged with or plead guilty to various federal crimes, all in attempts to recruit and field the best juco basketball team.

Their AD just plead guilty to mail fraud, and the NJCAA just handed the entire school, every single program on 2-years probation and a ban from post season play.

Every program that is except the basketball program, which has already completed a 2-year probation and post season ban, and so the NJCAA cannot penalize them further.

http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/state/15189920.htm

[Da Coach]

Here is another article detailing some of the corrupt practices at Barton County CC. Even a female member of the track team was paid for work she never did. Her phony job was to clen up the coach's office--

http://ap.thekansan.com/stories/state/ks/20060818/81872622.shtml

[tornado]

The final sentencing of those guilty of fraud at Barton Co. is supposed to be today.

I found this article interesting because it cites one of the defense attorneys
as pleading to the jury for a MILD SENTENCE for one of the defendants because the guy had already been punished severely by people who have "humiliated" him on the web groups and message boards.

In other words, he should get off easy since we've already been punishing him by our discussions on the boards!

"Defense attorney Lee Davis asked U.S. District Judge Monti Belot to consider when sentencing Brauman the amount of media attention his case received..."He has been humiliated worldwide for his conduct," Davis said. "He has been the subject of newspaper articles and web discussion..."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/basketball/ncaa/10/01/bartoncc.coach.sentencing.ap/index.html

[tornado]

The final disposition on the four defendants is somewhat surprising.
Many thought they'd get no jail time, but they did.

The former basketball coach and former AD both got 4 months in jail. Two other coaches also got jail time.
The legal violations stem from using the postal system to mail fraudulent documents regarding pleyer eligibility and academics.
But even beyond the legal violations, these guys committed massive rules violations against numerous NJCAA statutes, and went relatively unpunished, since most of the athletes have already left the institution.
Interesting to see the justice system come down so hard.
One of the defendants, Shane Hawkins, an ex-SIUplayer and coach was forced to step down from his position at SIU as assistant and is on probation.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/basketball/ncaa/10/02/kansas.juco.fraud.ap/index.html