Ex-Arizona Assistant Book Richardson Sentenced to 3 Months in Prison for Bribery

Former Arizona Wildcats assistant Book Richardson was sentenced to three months in prison and two years of probation after pleading guilty on a federal funds bribery charge, per Matt Norlander of CBS Sports and Adam Zagoria of the New York Times. 

"I do believe this is a serious crime," U.S. District Court judge Edgardo Ramos said during his ruling, per Bruce Pascoe of the Arizona Daily Star. "It went beyond violating NCAA rules... It wasn't a one-off. It wasn't a one-and-only thing. It took place over several months. At one point it was Mr. Richardson who initiated (payment of) a bribe."

Judge Ramos also spoke about Arizona in his ruling.

"I do believe that the University of Arizona was victimized by the crime," Ramos said. "It caused several athletes to decommit from the University [leading to] an additional [NCAA] investigation that may have some implications for the University."

Richardson had four other charges dropped as a part of his plea agreement. According to Pascoe, "Prosecutors wrote that Richardson abused his role by taking $20,000 over two separate payments and appeared to be already acting to steer UA players toward a new agency run by [Christian] Dawkins and [Munish] Sood."

Dawkins, an aspiring agent, was already convicted on charges of bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery.

In a statement following his sentencing, Richardson apologized to the school and said he made a mistake and his conduct wasn't "natural and normal."

"And again any student-athlete that I hurt, any student-athlete I put in a bad way, I apologize sincerely," he added. "And I'm always going to be their coach, I'm always going to be their uncle and to some of them I'll be their dad. And unfortunately this happened and hopefully we can build something positive from it."

Richardson's ruling came a day after former USC assistant coach Tony Bland was sentenced to two years of probation on a bribery charge, avoiding prison time.