Lawyer who talked to Tressel was a former OSU Walk-on
The Columbus Dispatch is reporting that the lawyer who contacted Tressel was former-OSU walk-on Chris Cicero, whose time at OSU overlapped with Tressl's time as an assistant at OSU. Cicero, apparently, has a history of unethical conduct, which is not remotely surprising as he probably should not have been talking to Tressel in the first place.
There are a lot of ways to interpret this information. But even if we take Tressel's word that his concern was for maintaining confidentiality, it appears that Tressel chose to keep quiet to protect his former player at the expense of the institution and with clear disregard for the rules. Now, while this is in some way understandable from a personal standpoint, it is completely indfensible from a professional one.
In the Smith scenario, is Tressel worried about another Reggie Bush-like scenario with a long, drawn-out media story line and Smith giving back his Heisman? I'm confused because he's already gone pro. Is Tressel (potentially) trying to run out the NCAA statute of limitations like what happened with the '91 Youngstown State I-AA national championship season?
I agree, there is too much evidence against Tressel.
Is 97.1 a Michigan leaning station? I moved to the San Francisco area a few years ago and even here the radio shows were talking/ripping about Tressel all morning. They hardly talk about college football let alone midwest college football.
In Columbus 97.1 is the home of Colin Cowherd, who is an unabashed Ohio State homer. Apparently he took a firm anti-Tressel line today, which was a pleasant surprise. I still refuse to listen to his show under any circumstances.
You just have to be honest. Now instead of just the lawyer and the players getting into trouble, it's Tressel to.
Heck, if the lawyer didn't break some serious ethical rules, that 5 game suspension is all that would have happened. Now their season is in jeopardy, their coach is on thin ice, that lawyer is screwed, and who know what else the NCAA might uncover after all this time now that they are actually investigating Ohio State.
All could have been avoided if Ohio State had brighter players, and most of it could have been avoided if at any point someone hadn't covered it up.
i'm guessing tressel wishes this idiot went to michigan and got a propper education so he wouldn't be dumb enough to put him in such a bad position in the first place.
This seems to discredit one of the arguments, that Tressel didn't take the first email seriously.
This wasn't some random email saying certain players were up to no good.
This guy was a local lawyer that Tressel seems to know personally.
To me, it seems that OSU is lucky this set of email is all they found.
This seems like a guy Tressel depended on to provide him with this kind information, and Tressel seems to trust that this guy would never out him over these matters.'
This all stinks so badly.
Eleven Warriors has gone from information collection mode to denial/burying their head in the sand mode. Its going to be fun to watch that program erode with each headline over the coming months.
Just a theory, but does anybody else think that the higher ups at OSU also knew about these players getting free tats before the season started? Maybe Tressel is just taking the blame now, knowing it would be much worse for everyone if it was found out that Tressel and the AD, and President all knew about this and did nothing about it. That would explain why Gee cut off Tressel when he was about to answer if anyone else knew about the emails.
Wasn't it the AD that cut him off?
Regardless, that to me was a very telling moment of that press conference... Tressel is asked if he forwarded the "confidential" emails to anyone, he says yes, and the AD jumps in there, all like
My dad has always liked Tressel as a person and a coach and I think he described the press conference perfectly- It felt slimy.
Right now its just a coach coverng up for his boyz. This comment by Gee makes me think it involves more.....Gee said he asked Tressel, "questions none of you (reporters) would dare ask ... to make sure there was no kind of smoking gun."
The truth is, they were questions the reporters weren't allowed to ask. Like the forwarding question.
I think the strategy is to lie and let the chips fall where they may because OSU can keep it in-house and the NCAA will not dig too deep. The only risk is that tOSU may have underestimated the fact that the NCAA does not have subpeona power but they adversely have latitude in burden of proof. They can assume things. Like... these dudes are trying to play us.
You beat me to it. I was just looking for the e-mails I read, which can be found here: http://sportsbybrooks.com/documents-read-the-actual-jim-tressel-emails-…
In the second image of e-mails he states that he had Eddie Rife in his office for an hour and a half. I was assuming that this meant he was somehow involved in the defense or prosecution in the case.
That was my opinion too. I'm afraid I'm going to get lawyer'd for it, but I was under the impression that if you had retained or were looking to retain an attorney that any information you tell them in that setting is protected.
this would be my assumption as well. I have no experience in the field of law to back up this assumption though.
What are the chances that the tattoo guy called that particular lawyer. I'm wondering if the attorney went looking for tattoo guy, maybe misrepresenting the reason he wanted to meet, to see exactly what Ohio State stuff he had and who and how he got it all. And I'm wondering if Tressel put him up to that fact finding mission. I don't necessarily accept that the few emails are the sum total of all the interaction between Tressel and the attorney.
cops let this guy know about tattoo guy's interactions with players
attorney tells tressel
????
attorney contacts rife
who wants to bet there were a series of phone calls between the Sweater and the Attorney about finding out more info that 'just so happens' to not have been recorded through tape or email...
That is what I was thinking as well. I guess we need to let the lawyers do the lawyering lol.
......as Harry Doyle put it, this is the "Trojan-Enz Boner Of The Week".
A lawyer in Nashville's take on how screwed Tressel could potentially be:
thanks that was interesting - i guess he's "unbiased" and sheds some light from a couple different angles. Also though, he may just be looking for some other coach to be treated the same as Pearl as a Tenn fan.
either way though, some of his perspectives are very good.
But... "all to keep his players, at least two of whom were under investigation for federal drug trafficking!, eligible for a season they shouldn’t have been eligible for at all."
I twisted that up in my head last night as well - but I thought the e-mails made clear that none of the players were under investigation for drug trafficking? Just mem/tats
from the April 16 e-mail... right after stating that Mr Rife's was being told his best chance was to take the "10 years" that federal prosecutors were suggesting...
Sounds like (at minimum) a casual client relationship to me...
He was a former walk-on, so Tressel probably felt the two of them knew what they were doing with the situation. Perhaps the football players and coaches are so tight-knit that even the coaches don't care or think to seek independent University counsel for critical matters like this involving players and improper benefits. Lucky for us.
is out of order!
1 Attourney, imo privelege, that's for the bar to decide.., I don't think he lightly divulged the info...I also don't think he for a second believed the emails would ever become public.... as in, once you read this you delete my email and then handle your situation.
2 It was obvious the attourney was affiliated with osu. He had Tressel's direct email, not the athletic departments front email for the avg person to send their hate mail or the psyco osu fan with a review of last weeks game.. This dude had Tressel's account.
3 Motive, I don't think you can call an attourney shady for giving Tressel the heads up here. Did he make a major mistake in doing so, sure but shady.....not at all... Imo this happens all the time, every day where some confidential info is shared looking out for someone else, hey this is a heads up, this is heading your way......ethical...no, loyal, yes, they do not always mix and loyalty can come with a price.....
Everyone affiliated with OSU in any way is just plain unintelligent.
Eddie Rife sits in Cicero's office for two hours discussing the facts of a pending criminal matter and seeking Cicero's "opinion" and someone thinks there is no attorney-client relationship?!? A-C relationships have been established on far less clear cut cases than that.
Its pretty evident from the emails that the request for confidentiality Cicero made to Tressel made only to protect Cicero and no one else.
At a minimum, Tressel should have clarified why Cicero was asking for confidentiality. Nothing suggests he ever did.
Cicero seems a bit of a doofus. He contacts Tressel trying to prevent a scandal and instead ends up sticking Tressel's head in a noose. Cicero will be in some witness protections program for his own safety before the day is out.
Let's be clear: Tressel not only stuck his own head in the noose, he pulled the lever.
Eddie Rife sits in Cicero's office for nearly two hours discussing the facts of a pending criminal matter and seeking Cicero's "opinion" and someone thinks there is no attorney-client relationship?!? A-C relationships have been established on far less clear cut cases than that.
Its pretty evident from the emails that the request for confidentiality Cicero made to Tressel made only to protect Cicero and no one else.
At a minimum, Tressel should have clarified why Cicero was asking for confidentiality. Nothing suggests he ever did.
Cicero seems a bit of a doofus. He contacts Tressel trying to prevent a scandal and instead ends up sticking Tressel's head in a noose. Cicero will be in some witness protections program for his own safety before the day is out.
The existence of an attorney client privilege between Cicero and Rife is irrelevant to Tressel. Tressel owed no duty of confidentiality to either Rife or Cicero at any point in this mess. Tressel's duty was one of loyalty to OSU, and he failed miserably to perform that duty.
Also, note that Cicero's first email to Tressel makes no mention of representing Rife and no request for confidentiality. This is why Tressel's confidentiality excuse is total BS. It also shows that Cicero learned of the investigation from his law enforcement buddies and he was giving Tressel a friendly heads-up. There's simply no evidence of an attorney-client relationship between Cicero and Rife at this time.
The more I analyze these emails and the issues they raise, the more I think this will spell the end of Tressel one way or another. It's just a matter of time.
not even joking, i legitimately suspect the Athletic Department did not consult an attorney before coming up with the attorney client privilege excuse. the thing has been torn to shreds in a thread with zero cites to law or moral handbooks by 6-8 people possessing no dog in the fight out of sheer boredom. hell i wouldn't be surprised if the Ohio Bar makes a statement clarifying priviledge using this as a springboard of publicity.
this whole situation requires an antoine dodson reference at the very minimum.
Was OSU really saying that it was the ACP keeping Tressel from talking? I thought he was just going on some BS about "confidentiality" between him and his source.
They're idiotic if they actually thought Tressel couldn't talk for that reason.
he keeps throwing attorney and confidential around enough times that i don't believe it's a mistake
March 10th, 2011 at 12:02 AM ^
I still can't believe that either
A) Tressel is that stupid. or
B) Tressel thinks everyone else is that stupid.
Or both maybe. Who knows? Either way I think if he's sleeping soundly the next six months he's delusional.
"the thing has been torn to shreds in a thread with zero cites to law or moral handbooks by 6-8 people possessing no dog in the fight out of sheer boredom."
It's threads and comments like this one that keep me coming back to this top-notch blog. Where else can you have an armchair discussion of legal issues with half a dozen practicing lawyers?
March 10th, 2011 at 12:03 AM ^
Not Eleven Warriors or the RCMB?
March 10th, 2011 at 12:43 AM ^
11 warriors is a complete disgrace to the blogosphere. They have essentially rolled over and played dead on Tresselgate. Check out their article "The Professional Amateurs of College Sports" and try this passage on for size:
"I won't weigh in on whether Tressel deserves this or that punishment, or whether this or that school did worse. However, the original controversy, the exchange of memorabilia for money and favors, did pique my interest in one oft considered idea: paying college players."
Really, 11 Warriors? REALLY? You're just going to look the other way and duck this whole issue in favor of talking about paying players? It gets better. Here's the conclusion paragraph, after unoriginal discourse on possibly paying atheletes for their services.
"What we see, with the Tat-5, or Cameron Newton, Reggie Bush, and other scandals, is not a disease but a sympton. (sic) As long as the student athlete hovers in between amateur and pro, there will be people exploiting that gray area for their benefit."
No, it's not a symptom. It's a NCAA violation, and you're completely missing the boat on this one to try to appease your readers.
"The NCAA only reflects our own inconsistencies as fans. We have two choices: either support a dramatic reform of the system, toward or away from professionalization, or get used to ridiculous and arbitrary rulings from the NCAA. Which is best? All I know is that I don't know."
What a piece of unabashed, willfully ignorant homerism. What a disgrace to independent journalism. 11W doesn't even mention any of the evidence, or the timelines, or the facts that we do know about the situation. Their position, in short, is an "I dunno" disguised as impartiality. Unbelievable. And to think that I used to go there for Buckeye news.
they'll lose their members who will go off and circlejerk on another site.
It's not exactly a red herring. If Cicero broke attorney-client privilege he'll get hauled before disbarment proceedings. And if that happens, so will Tressel and he'll have to testify. Under oath. According to the Clay Travis thing, it's probably moot because whether or not privilege actually was broken, a hearing is probably in order, so as to find out.
And I'm with those who say that the section of the email asserting that Rife was seeking Cicero's opinion, that constitutes legal advice and therefore should be privileged. I don't know what the bar considers proof, but it certainly warrants a look.
March 10th, 2011 at 12:17 AM ^
You are right about the practical significance of the ACP issue--Cicero's disciplinary hearing should provide a way to subpoena Tressel and force him to testify under oath about his communications with Cicero. The Ed Martin scandal didn't get serious until witnesses started getting put under oath by the feds.
My comment was focused on whether Tressel was under a duty of confidentiality to Cicero or anyone else. He wasn't. Even if OSU argued that Cicero was acting as Tressel's lawyer at some point in this mess, the duty of confidentiality is a one way street--only the lawyer is under the duty. The client can waive the duty at any time.
As for Rife, he has a good malpractice case against Cicero because it is clear that Cicero betrayed his confidence. Likely, the only issue is what are Rife's damages.
March 10th, 2011 at 10:52 AM ^
Without knowing more, I don't think it's malpractice, if anything it would be ineffective counsel but I don't think there is any indication that Cicero was ineffective to his client, just that he likely betrayed the confidentiality but at no apparent harm to Rife. Thus maybe an ethical violation for Cicero but no claim for Rife.
True, I think its more of a side discussion on how stupid Cicero was. Tressel had no professional/legal obligations to Cicero, and I think not disclosing it to the University when the NCAA came sweeping in mitigates a lot into sypathies for him doing it as a friend to a former player.
Too bad.
March 10th, 2011 at 12:21 AM ^
My biggest problem was his poorly written emails. If he writes briefs like he writes emails, he's lucky to have even passed the bar. Work like that would have been cut to pieces even at my alma mater the University of Toledo
They didn't teach you that bizarre bullet points are the new IRAC?
lawyer.
Rift walks into a lawyer’s office, Cicerblo, after he is recently charged for various drug related crimes. Cicerblo just finished serving one year suspension and is on probation for claiming to have had sexual intercourse with a judge to recuse him from his trial. Rife proceeds to tell Cicero of his collection of tOSU Buckeye memorabilia and offers to give Cicerblo a signed #2 jersey, Big Ten Championship ring, and a gold pants medallion in exchange for advice and representation. Cicerblo accepts the items and immediately places items on ebay for sale and receives a $500 buy it now bid. Cicerblo provides two hours of office consultation to Rift for a total charge of $300.
After their office consultation, Cicerblo immediately emails tOSU football coach, Dressel, about the recently learned information that his players are selling or exchanging tOSU football gear and gifts for cash and tattoos. Dressel thanks Cicerblo profusely for the valuable information and offers to give him a 2003 championship ring previously owned by a running back that was also represented by Cicerblo but happens to be in prison and suing Cicerblo for malpractice and for overcharging legal fees. Cicerblo accepts the championship ring because the aforementioned running back still owes Cicerblo $1,000 in fees. Cicerblo invites Dressel over for an Easter egg hunt. This year's surprise, each egg is filled with tOSU memorabilia. Dressel gleefully accepts the invitation and offers to bring a crate of signed copies of his book, The Winner’s Manual: For The Game of Life, the latest edition features a newly written Foreword entitled Winning by a confidential fan.
In keeping with your theme, shouldn't you change it to USOt?
"a 2003 championship ring previously owned by a running back ... but happens to be in prison..."
LOL. Well played, sir.