Attorney of Newly Accused Buckeye 9, Has a Good Feeling

Berry is one of 9 players accused

The attorney who represented the nine Ohio State football players during their interviews with NCAA investigators last week had a startlingly upbeat summation late today. John Simon, Storm Klein, Jaamal Berry and Nathan Williams were among the nine new names put forth in a Sports Illustrated story early last week that alleged they received improper benefits from a local tattoo parlor owner.


Many people had believed that the article didn't live up to the hype, and now it seems the NCAA doesn't even have a case with these newly accused players. 

"Tressel and OSU acknowledged in March a breach of the NCAA’s ethics bylaw, considered a major rule violation, when he failed to pass along emails received from a local attorney beginning in April 2010 that made him aware some of his players were having dealings with the tattoo parlor owner. Those players’ misdeeds, selling or trading memorabilia for cash or tattoos, already had been reported to OSU by the U.S. Attorney’s office, which was investigating Rife. The SI story, citing primarily anonymous sources, said there were more players involved and named them, thus causing NCAA investigators to come to town. In the meantime, Tressel, already assessed a five-game suspension by OSU to start this season, had resigned under pressure on Monday just a few days after an advance copy of that story was made available to OSU administrators."

The attorney himself said that “There is no scintilla of evidence related to 90 percent of those kids listed in the Sports Illustrated article that they did anything wrong,” “That’s the way it’s going to turn out, I believe. It’s just irresponsible reporting.”


An amazing part about all this is that the players didn't hesitate to bring in all the memorabilia and pool it together for a picture to show they have not sold anything. Meanwhile, Storm Klein's dad has really been upset going so far as to say:

“I can’t speak for anybody else,” Jason Klein told the Newark Advocate. “I just know what my son has done and know my son.“His name has been smeared, but I’m very confident he’ll come out of it without anything (penalty) because he’s done nothing.”

This is heartening news, the kind every Buckeye fan wants to hear. Now we watch and wait for August to come, and see if any more unexpected penalties will come. With USC losing their title in 2004, will the NCAA vacate wins from a particular, perhaps, multiple seasons?