Article published June 10, 2004
Recruit asked to repay cash from O'Brien
By JAMES DREW
blade COLUMBUS BUREAU CHIEF
COLUMBUS - A Columbus area woman said in a deposition that an assistant basketball coach at Ohio State University asked a potential recruit to repay about $6,000 that head coach Jim O'Brien gave him five years ago.
In the April 19 deposition, Kathleen Salyers said Aleksandar Radojevic told her that when he was recruited by OSU, Mr. O'Brien gave him $6,700 or $6,800 in cash. The money went to his parents in Serbia, she said.
A 7-3 center, Radojevic was signed by Mr. O'Brien, but he never played for the Buckeyes. The NCAA declared Radojevic ineligible, saying he had received money for playing basketball overseas.
Radojevic entered the NBA draft, was picked in the first round, and played for three teams before injuries ended his career.
"After Alex made it to the NBA, [OSU assistant coach] Paul Biancardi called Alex and said, `Hey, since you're doing OK, Jim O'Brien wants his money back.'●" Mrs. Salyers told attorneys representing a couple she has sued in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.
Mrs. Salyers, 47, said Radojevic gave her the money in a stack of $100 bills to return to Mr. O'Brien."He gave it to me in a brown envelope. And I had an end table. I putit under the end table,'' she said.
Mrs. Salyers said Radojevic told her someone would pick up the money, but she said no one did. He eventually told her to keep it, she said.
"He told me to put it on my house payment, which is exactly what I did,'' said Mrs. Salyers, a former resident of the Columbus suburb of Gahanna.
Mr. Biancardi, who is now head basketball coach at Wright State University near Dayton, didn't return phone messages yesterday. Mrs. Salyers said Radojevic, 27, lives in Greece.
Mrs. Salyers made the statements in a deposition as part of a lawsuitthat she filed in August, 2003, against Dan and Kim Roslovic.
OSU basketball player Slo-bodan "Boban" Savovic moved in with the Roslovics in June, 1998, but the couple arranged for Savovic to live with their housekeeper and nanny - Mrs. Salyers - about a month later, according to court records that Mr. Roslovic's attorneys filed.
Mrs. Salyers said the Roslovics told her there could be a problem with the NCAA regulations if Savovic continued to live with them, because they were OSU boosters.
The Roslovics agreed to pay Mrs. Salyers $1,000 per month plus expenses over four years for Savovic's room and board, Mrs. Salyers said. Mr. Roslovic agreed to the deal in a phone conversation from Mr. Biancardi's office at OSU - a charge Mr. Roslovic has denied.
Mrs. Sayers said the Roslovics reneged on the deal after their divorce, charging in court records that Mrs. Roslovic told her that the marriage ended because she had "sexual relations" with Savovic.
Mrs. Salyers is seeking $359,910 in damages, saying she gave Savovic $200 a week and later $150 a week and also paid for food and clothing, bought him a television, drove him around, paid for his auto insurance, and wrote some papers for his college courses. He lived with her from July, 1998, to June, 2000, she said
Attorneys representing Mr. Roslovic, whose family has a large construction firm in Columbus, said Mrs. Salyers didn't have a contract to do any work for the Roslovics.
"No reasonable person would continue to rely on an oral promise without receiving a single payment over the course of four years,'' wrote Mr. Roslovic's attorney, Kris M. Dawley.
Mr. Roslovic has filed a counter-claim alleging that Mrs. Salyers has slandered him by making "derogatory and false statements."
An attorney representing Mr. O'Brien, who was fired Tuesday for acknowledging he gave Radojevic $6,000 but is not a defendant in Mrs. Salyers' lawsuit, said OSU had not given him "due process" before firing him.
Attorney C. James Zeszutek also raised questions about Mrs. Salyers' "credibility."
Referring to Mrs. Salyers' depositions, Mr. Zeszutek said: "Anyone who reads the transcript; it is striking her lack of memory."
Mrs. Salyers said in her deposition that she had hoped that OSU would resolve her lawsuit against the Roslovics.
"There were many, many calls from Paul Biancardi requesting that I pay something for Boban. And I feel that he knew. He knew that the Roslovics asked me to take Boban. He knew that they were supposed to give me money. He was absolutely shocked the day that I told him that Dan [Roslovic] had not given me any money,'' said Mrs. Salyers, adding that she told Mr. Biancardi sometime in 2000.
Mrs. Salyers said Mr. Biancardi called to inform her when international taxes had to be paid on Savovic's behalf and to have her talk to a professor to have his grade changed because he was in danger of flunking. She said she couldn't recall the professor's name.
"I know that he - when he called me about Boban's - his grades, that Jim O'Brien knew about his grades. And I know that when Paul called me about Boban using his agent's father's credit card, business account for over $10,000 in long distance phone calls, that Jim O'Brien knew about that,'' she said.
When pressed for details, Mrs. Salyers said Savovic had used a calling card that belonged to the father of Mark Cornstein, whom she identified as a New York-based sports agent.
Mrs. Salyers said during the deposition that she saw sports agents leave the OSU basketball locker room - which she described as part of the"illegal things."
"I didn't witness them in the locker room, but I witnessed them coming out of the locker room because they went in like right after the game and then I would go down and wait for Boban and they would come out,'' she said.
Attorneys representing Dan and Kim Roslovic have filed motions seeking to dismiss Mrs. Salyers' lawsuit. That request is pending with Judge Alan C. Travis of Franklin County Common Pleas Court.
Contact James Drew at:
jdrew@theblade.com
or 419-724-6302.
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