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Thursday, October 15, 2009

Courts - "NCAA Documents in Fraud Case Made Public by Florida State"

Another NCAA story, following on this Oct. 14th story in an unrelated matter.

Today NY Times reporters Katie Thomas and Ken Belson report, in a long story:

Florida State has released nearly 700 pages of documents about an academic fraud case at the university after an appeals court ruled that the records should be made public, revealing fresh details and shedding light on the normally secret process by which the N.C.A.A investigates violations of its rules. * * *

Florida State released the transcript after an appeals court ruled Monday in favor of The Associated Press and other news-media outlets that had argued that records relating to the case should be made public. At issue were records that were maintained by the N.C.A.A. on a secure read-only Web site that was accessible to outside lawyers for Florida State.

Despite the release of documents, the N.C.A.A. appealed Wednesday to Florida’s Supreme Court and said in a statement that it intended to seek all “legal remedies associated with this case.”

“We feel strongly that our private documents are not subject to public records laws,” Bob Williams, an N.C.A.A. spokesman, said in the statement. “The enforcement process and indeed the normal course of our business relies on confidentiality to ensure compliance of N.C.A.A. rules, as directed by our membership.” * * *

Josephine R. Potuto, who attended the Florida State hearing and served on the infractions committee until last year, said secrecy was necessary because the N.C.A.A. does not have the power to subpoena witnesses. “One of the few things that the N.C.A.A. has is a promise to try to keep information private,” she said, while declining to discuss details of the Florida State case.

The story includes a link to a 10 MB, 700-page transcript of the NCAA hearing.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 15, 2009 08:33 PM
Posted to Courts in general