The University never likes it when your life off the court is far more interesting than your team’s life on the court. Rick Pitino has got a pretty interesting tale to tell.

Rick Pitino/univ. photo

By Andrew Wolfson
Louisville Courier-Journal
LOUISVILLE — University of Louisville men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino told police that he had consensual sex with Karen Cunagin Sypher at a Louisville restaurant where he’d been drinking on Aug. 1, 2003.

He also told police that he later gave Sypher $3,000 to have an abortion, according to Louisville Metro Police reports The Courier-Journal obtained under the Kentucky Open Records Act.

But Pitino denied Sypher’s allegations that he raped her at Porcini, after the restaurant closed, and again a few weeks later at a different location, police records show. And prosecutors who have reviewed Sypher’s claims say Pitino won’t be charged.

Sypher has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiring to extort money from Pitino in exchange for her silence about the alleged crimes, and with lying to the FBI. She has pleaded not guilty.

She reported the alleged rapes to Metro Police on July 9, about two months after she was indicted.

For Full Story

Woman Accused of Extortion