News / People
Rick Pitino Tells Police He Had Consensual Sex with Karen Cunagin Sypher
Rick Pitino, the Louisville head basketball coach,
said Wednesday that he had consensual sex with Karen Cunagin Sypher during a
one-night stand at a
However,
Pitino has accused her of extortion after she made several additional claims
about their affair, which he claims was just a one-night stand.
Sypher
accused Pitino of assault, rape and offering her money to have an abortion.
However, her accounts of sexual assault and rape do not fit Pitino’s schedule.
He was in
According
to reports, Pitino and Sypher (then just Karen Cunagin) had a one-night stand
together on August 1, 2003 after a meal at Louisville restaurant Portini. She
walked up to Pitino and asked him to speak to two of her sons, via telephone,
and get them interested in sports.
According
to Pitino, she left the restaurant, then came back before closing time. She and
a drunken Pitino began to engage in sexual intercourse while at the restaurant.
Afterwards, Pitino was too drunk to drive and hitched a ride with her. During
the ride, Pitino claims that she asked him for basketball tickets, so he gave
her his business card and told her to call him.
Two weeks
later, she called Pitino in his office, told her that she was pregnant and said
that he had to be the father because she had not had sex with anyone else in
months. Pitino then arranged a meeting to discreetly discuss the matter with
her at the condo of the team’s personal trainer Tim Sypher, whom she had not
met yet.
While in
the condo, Cunagin told Pitino that she had four children. Pitino said that if
she chose to have the child, he would demand a blood test to see if it was
really hers. She said that she wanted to have an abortion but didn’t have
health insurance.
At that
point, Pitino asked the cost of the abortion, to which she replied “$3,000”. He
then gave her $3,000 and walked out, according to him. Six months later,
Cunagin married Sypher.
However,
Sypher claims that during this meeting, Pitino raped and sexually assaulted
her. People claim that Sypher’s story doesn’t match, especially since Tim
Sypher was at the condo during the meeting. According to people close to the case, it is skeptical that a woman who
marry a man who was there when she was raped and a man who worked closely with
a man who raped her.
According
to people close to Pitino, the coach has alerted them for months of an
impending extortion case. U of L Athletic Director Tom
Jurich said
in a statement Tuesday that “Coach Pitino has been truthful with us about this
matter all along and we stand by him and his family during this process.”
“Several
months ago Coach Pitino informed me about the alleged extortion attempt,” said
Joanne Pitino, Rick’s wife, has kept quiet about
this case, while Rick will not be giving interviews and will try to solve the
case privately, according to his lawyer Steve Pence.
Rick and
Joanne Pitino (formerly Joanne Minardi) have been married for 33 years and have
five children together.
###
Click here
for more Sports
News
About
YourFINDit
YourFindit
Community is a business, music and social
networking community. YourFINDit provides members with a wealth of
applications that enable them to create an in depth profile within YourFindit.
Profiles include an About Me, Background and Lifestyle, Videos, Photo sharing,
News, Music, Blogs, unique URL and networking with other members inside the
YourFINDit community. YourFindit provides ADit to each member providing them
the opportunity to have an exclusive profile (no outside advertising)
displaying only banner ads they upload to their pages. Members can run their
own ads or give or sell their ad space to advertisers at prices the member
sets.
To create your
profile sign up and within minutes you too can have your People profile running
your ads and building your network with new members daily.
YourFindit
is owned and operated by TransWorldNews, Inc. a news and press
release distribution service.
