DETROIT — Eleven years after his plan went into action and more than five years after his indictment, the kingpin of the University of Toledo's betting scandal pleaded guilty to bribery in sporting contests Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Detroit.
Ghazi “Gary” Manni, 57, admitted to paying seven UT athletes to influence games between 2004-06 for sums of at least $300,000, according to court records.
Two former UT basketball players, Kashif Payne and Keith Triplett, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy Tuesday. Payne won the Mid-American Conference's defensive player of the year while at UT; Triplett, a Bowsher graduate, remains third in school history with 1,814 points.
Authorities charged Manni in May, 2009, but the case has dragged through federal court.
Mitchell Karam, Manni's gambling partner, already had entered a guilty plea, as had five former UT athletes. Three former UT running backs, Quinton Broussard, Adam Cuomo, and Harvey “Scooter” McDougle, Jr., already had pleaded guilty, and so had former basketball players Sammy Villegas and Anton Currie.
Court records show the conspiracy is believed to have begun in the fall of 2003, when an associate of Ghazi was running a cell phone store in Toledo.
Cuomo, a former backup running back for the Rockets, told federal investigators that he began the process. Following their introduction, Cuomo would give inside information about upcoming games to Manni, who would instruct players how he wanted them to affect play. After Manni gave the UT players their marching orders for point shaving — intentionally keeping a score within a betting line — he placed bets accordingly.
Manni provided money and other valuable things in return. He also invited many players to Detroit, where he lived, and paid for their meals and trips to Greektown Casino.
Cuomo also introduced McDougle — as well as several other UT players — to Manni. McDougle then began recruiting other UT players for Manni in the point-shaving plot. McDougle, to whom Manni provided a car, cash, and a cell phone, among other things, was the first player whom the FBI charged in March, 2007.
Villegas was the first to cooperate with federal investigators in a separate, though related, case. He admitted to shaving points during games in the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons.
Broussard admitted in court in 2011 that he purposely fumbled the ball in the 2005 GMAC Bowl for $500 from Manni, though the Rockets went on to win the game 45-13.
Federal investigators monitored Manni's phone calls for more than a year while investigating him and found extensive contact between him and UT players.
Federal investigators detailed regular contact between Rockets and Manni from November, 2005, to December, 2006, including a 2005 phone call in which McDougle asked Manni to put $2,000 on the Rockets' football game at UTEP.
Manni, Payne, Currie, and Triplett initially denied that they conspired to influence games.
Manni also pleaded guilty to food stamp fraud and fixing horse races Tuesday.
Nobody charged in the case has been sentenced yet. Manni, who has been incarcerated since 2013, faces almost six years in jail minus time served.
Contact Nicholas Piotrowicz at: npiotrowicz@theblade.com, 724-6110, or on Twitter @NickPiotrowicz
First Published December 10, 2014, 3:47 p.m.
