The United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced early Tuesday that charges of fraud and corruption in college basketball against four current assistant coaches -- Arizona's Emanuel "Book" Richardson, Auburn's Chuck Person, Oklahoma State's Lamont Evans and USC's Tony Bland -- will be detailed at a noon ET press conference. The feds say that Jim Gatto, Adidas' head of sports marketing, and his cohort paid a high-school athlete $150,000 in exchange for that player agreeing to attend a "private research university located in Florida" with roughly 16,000 students, 15 Division I sports teams, and a sponsorship deal with Adidas. The criminal complaints filed with the court didn't name the schools but contained details that identified them as the University of Louisville and the University of Miami. He provided as an example an adviser who was charged with securities fraud last year and was not reviewed for his qualifications and track record by the coaches before they introduced him to the players. The University of Arizona had also immediately suspended assistant coach Richardson, and stated it is "appalled to learn of the allegations as they do not reflect the standards we hold ourselves to and require from our colleagues." Four college assistant and associate coaches -- Chuck Person, Lamont Evans, Tony Bland and Emanuel Richardson -- employed at Division I schools with top-tier basketball programs, have "abused the trust" placed in them by players and families, according to the complaints. Person, associate head coach at Auburn, was drafted by the Indiana Pacers in 1986 and played for five NBA teams over 13 seasons. Adidas says it’s unaware of any misconduct at its company in a college basketball bribe-paying scheme but will “fully cooperate with authorities.”

The company issued a statement Tuesday after federal prosecutors announced that its director of global sports marketing is charged along with four college assistant coaches. The Latest on fraud and corruption charges announced against people associated with college basketball (all times local):

University of Louisville men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino says he’s shocked by corruption allegations made by prosecutors in New York against some college basketball assistant coaches. The other coaches charged are Anthony "Tony" Bland, from the University of Southern California; Lamont Evans, from Oklahoma State University; and Emanuel "Book" Richardson, from the University of Arizona. NEW YORK (AP) - In one of the biggest crackdowns on the corrupting role of money in college basketball, 10 men - including a top Adidas executive and four assistant coaches - were charged Tuesday with using hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to influence star athletes' choice of schools, shoe sponsors, agents, even tailors. The complaint also included a very telling excerpt about the two-year-long investigation:

"Since 2015, the FBI and USAO have been investigating the criminal influence of money on coaches and student-athletes who participate in intercollegiate basketball governed by the NCAA. As relevant here, the investigation has revealed numerous instances of bribes paid by athlete advisors, including financial advisors and business managers, among others, to assistant and associate basketball coaches employed by NCAA Division I universities, and sometimes directly to the student-athletes at Division I universities as facilitated by the coaches, in exchange for those coaches exerting influence over student-athletes under their control to retain the services of bribe-payors once the athletes enter the National Basketball Association ("NBA")."
The office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announces that 10 individuals, including assistant coaches at four NCAA Division I men's basketball programs—Arizona, Auburn, Oklahoma State, and USC—have been arrested on federal corruption charges. The accused are alleged to be part of a scheme by which coaches accepted bribes to steer NBA-bound college players toward certain agents and financial advisers. Court documents also allege that an apparel company later identified as Adidas paid $100,000 to the family of an unnamed player to ensure his signing with an unnamed Division I school, which was later confirmed as the University of Louisville.