NEW YORK — A con man named Louis Martin “Marty” Blazer III may have failed in his scheme to make low-budget movies with money swiped from pro athletes, but he has now succeeded in stealing part of the spotlight in a scandal that has shaken college basketball to its core.
Federal authorities revealed this week that Blazer was the wily informant – referred to in criminal complaints only as CW-1 “cooperating witness-1” — who played a central role in a federal bribery investigation of assistant coaches at four top-tier basketball schools.
“I’m aware of people who are willing to do this,” federal prosecutors say Blazer told authorities in 2014 when he agreed to wear a wire and buddy up to coaches who took covert payments in exchange for encouraging top-flight NBA prospects to choose a particular school, agent or financial adviser.
Blazer, 46, posed as an experienced – and corrupt – financial adviser and business manager while helping the FBI make hundreds of recordings, a ruse resulting in a case charging 10 people, including assistant coaches from Auburn, Southern California, Arizona and Oklahoma State.
The expanding ramifications of the probe were felt Wednesday when Louisville announced it was putting basketball coach Rick Pitino on unpaid leave in response to a related scheme alleging agents promised the family of a Louisville prospect it would get $100,000 from Adidas if he signed with the Adidas-sponsored school.
Authorities won’t discuss their arrangement with Blazer in detail. And his attorney, Martin Dietz, declined to comment.
But a guilty plea to securities fraud and other charges that could buy him leniency shows that his cooperation played off a pattern of deception dating to 2000, when prosecutors say he began paying college athletes to get them to retain his company as a financial adviser or business manager.
