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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2009 > August > 12
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Sex, Abortion…Trouble for Pitino
No matter how things now turn out down in Louisville, Rick Pitino is damaged goods.
In fact — in light of the story just reported by the Louisville Courier Journal (CJ) — you have to wonder if he still has a future with the Cards.
According to a story written by the CJ’s Andrew Wolfson, the married Pitino not only told police he had consensual sex with Karen Sypher — the estranged wife of his equipment manager and the woman indicted by a federal grand jury for trying to extort $10 million from the coach — at a Louisville restaurant six years ago, but that he gave her $3,000 for an abortion.
The newspaper reported that Sypher told police that Pitino raped her on two different occasions in 2003. The CJ reported her charges have not gotten much traction with authorities who have noted some discrepancies.
Prosecutors have said Pitino won’t be charged.
The Courier Journal first reported the story Tuesday night after using the Kentucky Open Records Act to obtain Louisville Metro Police reports.
Up until now there had only been speculation about what — if anything — had occurred between the two of them. And yet there was a real clue at a pro-Sypher rally outside the courthouse in May.
Initially, the Courier Journal ran a photo of four protestors holding up signs of discontent. One read “Leave Karen Sypher Alone.” Another read: “Karen Sypher is the victim.”
The sign of the fourth protestor — who later was cropped out of the picture that was published — read: “What’s the price of an abortion?”
Turns out the kid holding the sign was Sypher’s son.
Both Pitino and Sypher — who later married Tim Sypher, Pitino’s friend going back to the days when both were with the Boston Celtics and the Cards equipment manager — agree they had sex at a restaurant after it had closed for the night.
According to Pitino, he had too much to drink and couldn’t drive home so he stayed there. Later he told police Sypher drove him home. He said a couple weeks later she called to tell him she was pregnant.
She told him she was getting an abortion, but had no health care. He claimed he asked her how much it would cost and was told $3,000, which he gave to her.
Sypher disputes Pitino’s version of the story and said the coach raped her once at the restaurant and once a few weeks later at the condo of her future husband. Pitino denies that.
According to the Courier Journal, Pitino’s contract states he can be fired for cause for acts of “moral depravity” or for being dishonest with the school. It also permits him to be fired for generating negative publicity, if it is caused by his “willful conduct that could objectively be determined to bring (the) employee into public dispute or scandal, or which tends to greatly offend the public.”
Pitino has four years left on a six-year deal that with incentives, base salaries and retention bonuses is said to worth at least $23.2 million.
How this plays out with the University of Louisville hierarchy — not to mention Pitino’s wife and five kids — will be interesting.
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