Book Richardson Wiretap Alleges Sean Miller Paid Deandre Ayton $10K a Month

On Wednesday, federal prosecutors played for jurors a wiretap recording of former Arizona men's basketball assistant coach Emanuel "Book" Richardson alleging to Christian Dawkins that the team's head coach, Sean Miller, was paying former Wildcats and current Phoenix Suns center Deandre Ayton $10,000 per month during his time at the school, per Mark Schlabach and Jeff Borzello of ESPN.com.

The conversation went as follows:

Richardson: "Sean's got to get the (expletive) out the way and let us work."

Dawkins: 'We'll see how Sean plays it out."

Richardson: "You know what he bought per month?"

Dawkins: "What he do?"

Richardson: "I told you—10."

Dawkins: "He's putting up some real money for them (expletive). He told me he's getting killed."

Richardson: "But that's his fault."

Former financial adviser Marty Blazer told the government that Miller told Richardson in June 2017, referencing payments to Ayton, "I'm taking care of everything myself. I wanna bring you in. I'll turn everything over to you."

Seven different wiretap recordings were played for the jury, per Pete Thamel and Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports, with multiple references made on those tapes to Miller paying players, including Ayton and Rawle Alkins.

Dawkins, who was opening a sports management agency and has been charged with bribing college coaches, allegedly worked with Richardson to steer potential pro players to his agency. In exchange, Richardson received money from Dawkins, most notably to convince Ayton, Alkins and Allonzo Trier to work with Dawkins when they turned pro.

Per ESPN's report, "Munish Sood, a business partner of Dawkins, pleaded guilty to three felony counts related to the case and testified that Richardson accepted a $5,000 bribe during an initial meeting in New York on June 20, 2017" in exchange for steering that trio to Dawkins' agency.

Richardson also allegedly asked Dawkins and Sood for $15,000 in an effort to bring recruit Jahvon Quinerly to Arizona, with Richardson planning to pay his mother three $5,000 installments and $10,000 of his own money.

Quinerly ultimately chose Villanova over Arizona.