Allegation 4 is about BIG BROTHER. Johan believes “for the Committee to accept Cottrell's position would place the enforcement staff in a position where the investigator would always have to ask the right question in order to get complete information about any issue.” OK what you need to know is:
1) Logan provides 2 loans to Cottrell during the summer of 1998.
2) Johan/NCAA contends that Cottrell knowingly provided misleading information.
That’s it. The COI spend close to 100 pages on this. See, Ronnie was interviewed by Johan on November 29th, 2000. Johan asked Cottrell who purchased the house he lived in at Florida from him. Ronnie said in the interview, in fact, there had even been a rumor that Logan purchased my house. Ronnie said, "It's not true." Then Johan asked him how do you respond to the rumor or the statement that Logan Young provided $200,000 for you to come to Alabama? JOHAN blabs on Page 4-4, Cottrell said to me, "Nothing, Richard. He never gave me anything. I don't care. It's a lie. It is not true. He never gave me any money, Richard," I felt then, there was no sense to go any further. That just stopped my whole thought process as far as even asking him about a loan or any other forms of compensation. I will prove this statement false!
(POINT 1)
Then JONES one of Johan’s Storm
Troopers says Mr. Yeager, I wanted to add we did this interview and then later,
after we interviewed Logan, we found out that there had been a loan for a
$55,000 amount and also learned that not one dime of it had been repaid at that
point. So in our mind we
kind of jumped to, well, maybe it wasn't a $200,000 situation. It had been a
$55,000 situation. Now, I recognize that it was a loan that got repaid.
OK STOP. I hope you read that closely, if not read it again. Johan/NCAA admits right here that this is a loan that got repaid period.! (POINT 2)
It was just a very unnerving situation to come right out of the gate. I will say first of all being scared to death, I mean this is something you guys do every day. I'm not happy to be sitting here. Then for him to ask me about, … the very first thing to come out of this thing was the fact that I had been compensated for leaving Florida State. I mean, I was just very upset.
The NCAA cooperative legislation, Paragraph 19.01.3, states it is “one that completely discloses any relevant information requested.” So In short, Johan created a violation from his own interpretation of the Q&A. Johan also made conclusions as to state of mind & intent of Ronnie. Alabama even notes that the loans at issue did not occur until six or seven months after the time of Coach Cottrell came to the University of Alabama. (Point 3)
Vargo says how Ronnie self reported Allegations 5 – C and 15 A – D and how the NCAA/Johan probably feel “Maybe this is welcome news due to your events of yesterday and this morning. In any event, Coach Cottrell does not dispute and is, in fact, embarrassed as to previous errors of judgment that have resulted in the secondary violations set forth in Allegations 5 - C and 15 - A through D.” The common thread through these secondary violations is Coach Cottrell trying to be helpful beyond what the rules allow. Johan, Alabama, & the SEC Commissioner and Cottrell are all in agreement that these are secondary in nature and that Cottrell has been significantly disciplined, as set forth in the University materials. (Point 4)
1) Cottrell accepted the NCAA interpretation of the loan in Allegation #4 to be a violation of the supplemental pay legislation.
2) The violation was a not a violation of the plain language and plain letter of the supplemental pay regulation as it reads.
3)
The loan was a publicly recorded document and
publicly notarized by a member of the University of Alabama compliance
office.
4) Cottrell nor counsel were aware of this loan being a potential violation until being informed of the membership services interpretation in late April or May of 2001.
5) There has not been any allegation that Coach Cottrell provided false information during his November interview but Cottrell was charged with unethical conduct for responding truthfully to what was requested.
COTTRELL has a meeting with Marsh where he talks about all of the allegations with Logan. For close to 20 pages he is asked about it. Yeager tries to put him in a corner several times. Cottrell finally responds Well, as I have stated before, I didn't know it was a violation. It wasn't a cleansing, or a revival session with he and I, where I was sharing intimate details of my entire life. I was frustrated at that time that someone said that my home had been purchased by Logan. To me there is a big difference in a purchase of a $600,000 home and a second mortgage on an investment property in Tallahassee, Florida. They ask Ronnie when he moved, when his family moved, When & where the 1st time he met Logan was etc.
We kind of thought if we had been interviewing a student-athlete and been wanting to know about an allegation that they received $100,000 from a booster or something. We thought we were holding the coach to the same standard we would hold any student-athlete to when we made this allegation. OK I think Ronnie has earned a little bit of respect here that he is NOT GETTING. He has been doing a job for 20 years, this is the 1st time he has ever been accused of misconduct and you want to hold him to the same standard as any kid graduating high school? That doesn’t make sense. (Point 5)
The Spanish inquisition goes on for awhile. Ronnie talks about how when he moved he sold all of his stuff in Florida except for an investment property that his wife's sister was living in. Ronnie did not want to move her out at that time. The COI actually ask why the need for the loan if you had just sold all of your investment properties? COTTRELL: Well, I did not say that I sold them at a profit, either, ma'am. Two of the rental properties I sold at a loss. One of them was a break-even incident. So Ms. POTUTO ask Ronnie All right, Why didn't you just have your wife take the loan? You said she was the vice-president of a bank. My understanding is that if you are a vice-president at a bank, your opportunity to get the best interest rate on the loan is, close to 100%, or very good. None of your Damn Business. Anyway, Ronnie responds That's not exactly true. That's not the reason we didn't choose to use Cap City Bank. The reason we chose not do it was because - this is personal, but that's okay. I will go ahead and say it. If you are the vice-president of a bank, maybe you don't want all of your “family” laundry carried in front of a Committee for that bank. We didn't want people to know everything we or our family did. That’s why We didn't do it that way. It is obvious these people have already made up there minds!
The COI then asked why use Logan for the loan? I had I told him I wanted to take the equity out of that property. He said, "Well, maybe you should talk to David Pearson." He introduced me and David was the person that I actually negotiated the loan with, with Young Investments, Incorporated. Now, if you are asking why I chose to borrow the money through Logan, they were very flexible terms. I admitted that and I appreciated that. That's why when he offered to set it up or maybe to see David, I did it. Now David Pearson sat down with me and told me that when we sold that property to Kathy, we could owe more than what we get out of it. I knew that could happen, and that if that happened it would be due at that time.
Again, at the time I did it, I did not think I was violating any NCAA rule.
I have had individuals finance property before.
I have bought property with no money down before.
I don't see a loan from a Commercial Bank as being compensation.
If I'm wrong there, then I am wrong.
MR. PARK: Was there a reason, Mr. Cottrell, that you did not pay any interest on this loan for almost 3 years? MR. COTTRELL: Absolutely. When the loan was made, the whole intention was for me to take the equity out of that house and pay eight percent interest until the house was sold. We had hoped to get Kathy into that house quicker than we did. Again, we are getting into personal issues. She had some financial trouble. We had to work her through those things. Anyway throughout that time I stayed in constant contact with David, & Logan about it. I kept them updated.
I called Logan after we lost to Auburn, that Monday, and called him and told him that we were getting close to being able to get a loan for Kathy so she could buy the house. In fact, she owns it now. Basically Ronnie used the equity in his own house to help out a family member. He borrowed money off of the equity that he had in the property for himself and his sister in law. At some time in the future Ronnie knew that the equity would be exhausted and his sister in law would by that time either have to be financially able to afford it or he would have to sell it on the open market to pay the loan off. During the meantime the bank gave him some money for his use to set up in Alabama, but payments were made until it was sold out of the remaining equity in the house.
My question is this?
What was the basis for your belief that Mr. Cottrell had received
$200,000 in gifts, cash, stocks or whatever from Mr. Young?
JOHAN said We had heard from Culpepper that Logan Young had made that statement that it cost him $200,000 to bring Ronnie Cottrell to Alabama. So we were following up basically from some of that information. At that point I had learned enough about Mr. Young to realize that it probably wouldn't have been straight out. It might have been something through land or some other type of procedure.
Ronnie’s attorney Mr. VARGO says during the initial interview in November “if you want the mortgage information I will get it to you.” Johan said, "I don't know if it's necessary, but we may get back to you." I have a memo in my file on February 14, 2001, where Johan called and said, "Todd, it has become apparent that we are going to need those materials now." He also wanted wage information for Ronnie, as well as his wife, and I had some concerns about extending to his wife. I am just using that for recollection purposes. When the materials came in on that, I believe I called Johan on the 27th of February, which was about thirteen days later, left you the voice mail message that the actual loan and all the mortgage materials were organized. I sent them off March 1. I told him of the existence of the loan and said I was sending that to him on voice mail.
YEAGER asked Were you aware at that time that Mr. Young had disclosed the loan? MR. VARGO: No, Sir.
YEAGER ask Johan did you communicate with Coach Cottrell or his attorney that you now had additional information about the loan prior to receiving the packet? JOHAN says No, because we didn't know about the loan until the day he gave me the voice mail.
STOP RIGHT HERE! Lets restate (Point 1) shall we. JOHAN blabs on Page 4-4, Cottrell said to me, "Nothing, Richard. He never gave me anything. I don't care. It's a lie. It is not true. He never gave me any money, Richard," I felt then, there was no sense to go any further. That just stopped my whole thought process as far as even asking him about a loan or any other forms of compensation.
OK understand that this interview was done in November 2000. Logan was not Interviewed until the 27th of February, 2001. Then JONES one of Johan’s Storm Troopers says one of the things I thought was odd was that in February it seemed like the disclosure of the information about the mortgage was in a cooperative spirit then, but it didn't occur in November, when we interviewed him. LIE! See as much as TODD VARGO would have loved to get Ronnie off, He is a Lawyer. There is no way in hell he would risk loosing his license to practice law for Ronnie. He says he Told Johan in November he could get the Mortgage information. Now Johan & Jones are trying to say that they didn’t know about the loan from LOGAN until February 2001 almost 3 months later! In addition Culpepper’s initial interview was in January 2000 13 months earlier! Even if Culpepper didn’t tell in January 2000 & Vargo didn’t tell in November of 2000, then Johan learned of the loan from VARGO by his OWN admission in February 2001. NOT LOGAN!
Getting back to JONES one of Johan’s Storm Troopers. He says It would seem like-we can't figure out what would have changed between November and February. That's that's why we are suspicious as to the timing, because it was about the time we found out about the loan. We can't prove that, but it made me very suspicious and feel if he was truly trying to be cooperative, we would have found out about it in November and not had to wait until February.
CHAIRMAN YEAGER: Mr. Cottrell or Mr. Vargo, do you have anything else on No. 4?
MR. COTTRELL: I want to respond to the statement he just made again, because Logan Young has never given me anything. I want to say it again.
I did take a loan from Logan Young.
I took it at the time. I did not think it was a violation.
My attorney and I have said that we agree it is a violation. I did not know it at the time.
Logan has never given me anything.
I did take a mortgage from him and I paid it in full.
To just respond again:
I want to remind that I offered to give the documents, and I gave them.
You asked for documents for homes I lived in. I gave them.
Mr. Jones, you asked for documents of mortgages that I lived in and I provided them.
The last thing is, if I need to show documentation of my sis-in-law trying to get credit for how she could buy the property over those years, I can provide that.
I spoke on a constant basis to Mr. Pearson and Mr. Young about my note. I was not in violation of the agreement I made with them, because I told them when I sold the property, I would pay it in full, and I did. I apologize that you all had to spend this much time with me. I just regret it. I wish I had been able to communicate clearer, but I did not knowingly mislead Johan. That was not my intention. I provided the materials to my attorney when I carried the documents of everything. I carried the documents for Mr. Young to him at that time and he turned it over to Johanningmeier.
OK Another Allegation has been thrown out & I still have not seen any information that would make me think Alabama or Ronnie did anything wrong. In my opinion Allegation #4 is the most troubling of all. I do not see how it is any business of the NCAA where Ronnie gets paid or compensated. Not only that, I really don’t believe it happened the way Johan is portraying. Remember the only thing that is not agreed on is that Johan/NCAA contends that Cottrell knowingly provided misleading information. The COI Transcripts/Hearing show me nothing to prove that Ronnie lied. In fact just the opposite. I have had the misfortune in life to need the services of a lawyer. While I am sure there are a few out there willing to stick there neck out for a client, I don’t Think TODD VARGO or any lawyer for that matter would OUTRIGHT LIE in any hearing risking an ethics violation or whatever. VARGO states he offered the mortgage information in November to Johan and you can bet the Farm that it was offered.
In addition There are again several things that are very troubling about the testimony of JOHAN and his Staff.
1) Including Jones stating in our mind we kind of jumped to, well, maybe it wasn't a $200,000 situation. It had been a $55,000 situation. Now, I recognize that it was a loan that got repaid.
2) The loan was a publicly recorded document and publicly notarized by a member of the University of Alabama compliance office.
3) Cottrell nor counsel were aware of this loan being a potential violation until being informed of the membership services interpretation in late April or May of 2001.
4) We were holding the coach to the same standard we would hold any student-athlete to when we made this allegation.
5) JOHAN said We had heard from Culpepper that Logan Young had made that statement that it cost him $200,000 to bring Ronnie Cottrell to Alabama. HEARSAY!
6) Johan & Jones are trying to say that they didn’t know about the loan from LOGAN until February 2001 almost 3 months later! In addition Culpepper’s initial interview was in January 2000 13 months earlier! Even if Culpepper didn’t tell in January 2000 & Vargo didn’t tell in November of 2000, then Johan learned of the loan from VARGO by JOHAN’s OWN admission in February 2001.
7) Jones states “That's why we are suspicious as to the timing, because it was about the time we found out about the loan. We can't prove that.”
I think if this continues the Swiss will be out of business. Swiss Cheese again! J