According to the Louisville Courier-Journal’s Andrew Wolfson, Louisville coach Rick Pitino told police that he and Karen Cunagin Sypher, the woman charged with extorting Pitino, had sex Aug. 1, 2003, and that he later gave her $3,000 for an abortion.
Since the incident, Sypher has tried to extort Pitino for cars, house payments, tuition for her kids, and $10 million, according to the criminal complaint Pitino filed in April. She also told investigators that Pitino raped her twice.
According to the complaint, her husband and Pitino staff member Tim Sypher delivered her list of demands to the coach. Karen Cunagin Sypher married Tim Sypher about six months after she and Pitino had sex in August 2003.
[Pitino] said that about two weeks later, Sypher called, telling him she was pregnant and he had to be the father because she hadn’t had sex with anybody else for months.
Pitino said he told her they should meet somewhere discreetly to discuss the matter. He said he suggested the condo of the team’s equipment manager, Tim Sypher, whom she’d not yet met, but later married. She met Tim Sypher and followed him to the condo.
According to [Louisville Metro Police Sgt. Andy] Abbott’s report, Pitino said he told her that he had five children and that she had four, and that he didn’t know what he wanted to do about the situation.
He said that if she chose to have the child, he would require a blood test to determine whether or not the child was his.
He said she told him she was going to have an abortion but didn’t have health insurance. He said he asked how much it would cost and she said $3,000, which he gave her, according to Abbott’s report.
He denied Sypher’s allegation that he sexually assaulted her at the condo — he said they had no sex there or anywhere else other than on Aug. 1 at Porcini.
Cunagin Sypher first mentioned that she was raped in July, after she had already been charged with extortion and lying to the FBI. She told police that Pitino raped her at the restaurant and later at the condo when they met to discuss her pregnancy. Louisville Metro Police Sgt. Andy Abbott questioned her on the incidents and decided not to press charges because of a lack of verifiable information.
Sypher told Abbott that she was introduced to Pitino at Porcini, and that he spoke by phone with two of her sons, at her request.
She said that at the end of the night, Coury gave Pitino the keys to the restaurant and asked him to lock up when he was ready to leave. At that point, she alleged, Pitino forced himself on her while she was sitting on a leather bench.
“I was pushing him off and screaming,” she told Abbott. “No one was around.”
Asked by Abbott why she didn’t disclose that Tatum was present, she said in a second interview that she didn’t find that out until more than a year later, and still isn’t sure he was there.
Sypher said she gave Pitino a ride home because he hopped in her Escalade after she unlocked the door, and because she wanted him out of her life, she told police.
Sypher also alleged that toward the end of August 2003, when she realized she was pregnant and met with Pitino at Tim Sypher’s condo, Pitino pushed her to the floor and raped her again, while Tim Sypher was upstairs.
But Karen Sypher insisted that the incident occurred between the time she had an ultrasound test confirming the pregnancy on Aug. 26, 2003, and Aug. 29, 2003, when she had an abortion in Cincinnati, according to police records.
And Pitino was able to prove through his calendar that he was in Pebble Beach, Calif,. at the time, the records show.
“I confronted her concerning her timetable,” Abbott said in a report, “and she could offer no valid explanation.”
Pitino does not plan to take a leave of absence as Louisville’s coach as the fall semester approaches and the first practices of the 2009-10 season are barely two months away.
