WHAT'S NEXT
The Lyon County Sheriff's Department acknowledged late Tuesday a third party was allegedly involved in the recruiting gone bad of Fernley offensive lineman Kevin Hart.
Hart claims, in a report taken Saturday by the LCSD, that a Kevin Riley falsely represented himself as a recruiter -- a middle man to big-time college football programs -- and led the 6-foot-5, 290-pounder and his family to believe there were scholarship offers available when there were none.
Obtaining money with a false pretense is the charge on the report at this time, said Deputy Dan Lynch, who took the report. Finding Riley could be difficult, though.
"It's an ongoing investigation but we have no suspect at this point and no info to identify a suspect," Lynch said.
Lynch spent 1 1/2 hours Saturday taking statements from Hart and Fernley coach Mark Hodges at the school, a day after Hart verbally committed to California Berkeley during a momentous school assembly that had Hart's father, Richard, holding back tears.
The purported recruiter coincidentally has the same name as a Cal redshirt freshman quarterback, but the sheriff's department does not know of a connection between the Cal quarterback and the recruiter.
Lynch declined to say how much money the Hart family paid Riley, or how the purported recruiter kept in contact with Hart and Hodges.
Hart said at the announcement ceremony Friday that he talked many times with Cal head coach Jeff Tedford and that "personal experience" led to his decision to choose the Golden Bears over Oregon.
But it appears he and his family were misled by Riley. The RGJ reported on Monday that Hart, a two-star prospect according to rivals.com, was never recruited by either Cal or Oregon.
The NCAA continues to keep an eye on the situation, but may not have any jurisdiction over it.
"Our net covers the prospective athlete and the (universities)," said spokeswoman Stacey Osburn, who said her office has received an abundance of calls on the matter. "A third party wouldn't fall under our rules."
Also Tuesday, the universities once thought to have recruited Hart were cleared of any involvement by the Lyon County School District.
The exculpating of Cal, Oregon, Nevada, Oklahoma State and Washington on the eve of National Signing Day was the only significant piece of information to come out of a statement released by the district, which has been conducting an internal investigation of the circumstances that led Hart to announce he was heading to Cal.
"Although only in a preliminary stage, the district's investigation to date has been unable to verify that Kevin Hart was ever offered an athletic scholarship or letter of intent to play football," read the statement, which was issued by LCSD superintendent Nat Lommori and assistant superintendent Teri White.
The news came less than 24 hours before recruits around the country will sign their letters of intent, today, in what has become one of the biggest days of the year in college football.
"The district understands the importance of the National Letter of Intent signing date (today) to these fine institutions and their football programs and issues this statement in order to clear up any concerns prospective recruits to those universities might have as a result of the events that have unfolded at Fernley High School since last Friday," the statement said.
"The district will continue it's investigation into these serious allegations and will provide additional details, to the extent it is permitted to do so by law, in the future."
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 28
Report bearbacker71
So what IS the connection beween our Kevin Riley and he mysterious person of the same name who offered a Cal scholarship to Kevin Hart. Will the QB have to go to Reno to stand in a police lineup?
Did the purported hoaxer have a sense of humor, knowing how dumb Hart would sound when he said he was recruited by "Kevin Riley"? But what about the other four "offers" and that trip to Oklahoma State that Hart said he made that nobody knows about? This story is getting more weird everyday.
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 67
Report sp4149
So far the Reno reports have not established any connections between Cal and the Fernley incident. Obviously though, someone involved had some knowledge of Cal football and threw out some recognizeable names. Some of the posts on the Nevada WolfPack forums were throwing around sums of several hundred dollars or more paid by the prospect and his family. The story may be changing from a hoax into a scam. It has certainly become convoluted. Hopefully the kid hasn't made up a new story to cover the old one since then it would escalate to giving a false statement to law enforcement officals and he could be looking at jail time.
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 63
Report milo2
My guess is that it's either someone local who hates the kid or his family and can read the newspaper...or someone from Stanfurd. My guess is that the locals might be smarter then a Stafurdite...but who knows. Bummer for the kid but maybe he'll get a jump of it.
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 28
Report bearbacker71
Something puzzles me about this case. Why would Hart go on record as having paid the alleged scammer to obtain a scholarship; an act which could disqualify him from future recruitment by a 4-year school. If not accused of taking money, the scammer would never admit to receiving payment (an act of fraud). Not worth a few hundred dollars that probably won't be recovered anyway because of Hart's inability to provide any information regarding alleged scammer.
Why don't the investigators just cut to the chase and determine if Hart ever visited Oklahoma State, something he claims to have done. If they find out he lied about that, chances are he's lying about a lot of other things as well.
Just in....at 2:45 pm ..the case was talked about on Pardon the Interruption on ESPN with Hart being portrayed as a victim of a scam. I'm not so sure of that anymore.
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 63
Report milo2
I feel sorry for that kid. What it is about Berkeley but it always attracts the fringe? I guess that's part of what makes it Berkeley. Oh well...maybe the kid will get in somewhere, work hard and kick some butt. The kid is huge.
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 28
Report bearbacker71
Although Coach Tedford was reportedly none too happy with the Kevin Hart story, I doubt it hurt the program or this years last minute recruiting push. It showed that some athletes will do just about anything for a Cal scholarship. Don't they say that any publicity is good publicity? I wonder how Kevin Riley feels about being named as the mysterious "recruiter"?
Well, only 365 days till 2009 LOI Day. Doesn't seem to be too much enthusiasm around here concerning ths years crop. We might have a couple scholarships left over since Tedford mentioned that two players have left the program.