Word: pendergastlies
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...help pay his bookies, Pendergast orchestrated the Northwestern point-shaving scheme. In February 1995 he made contact with Kenneth Dion Lee, 21, a starting guard on the Northwestern men's basketball squad. A three-point specialist who was one of the team's leading scorers, Lee had his own gambling problems. At one point Northwestern had suspended him for it. He had run up big debts...
...Pendergast promised to pay Lee thousands of dollars if he could hold down the score of certain Northwestern games. Lee agreed and later recruited starting center Dewey Williams and a third player. A college friend put Pendergast in touch with an acquaintance, Brian Irving, who lived in Reno and agreed to place the bets. Over the next few weeks, Pendergast and Irving put the plan into gear. Three Northwestern games were selected: against Wisconsin on Feb. 15, Penn State on Feb. 22 and Michigan on March 1. Once the Nevada sports books set the line, Pendergast would telephone Lee with...
While the spread varied with each game, one factor was constant--the pivotal role Nevada played in executing the scheme. After Pendergast raised money in Chicago, he wired it to Irving in Reno. For the Penn State game, Irving bet $4,400 with the sports book at the Reno Hilton. When Penn State, a 14-point favorite, won by 30 points, Irving collected the group's winnings and wired an initial $6,000 payment to Pendergast, who gave Lee $4,000 in cash as his share...
...Michigan game, Pendergast and two friends flew to Las Vegas on March 1 and bet $20,150 with the sports book at Caesars Palace that Northwestern would lose that night by at least 251/2 points. When Pendergast phoned Lee in Ann Arbor and conveyed that number, Lee was reluctant to go ahead because "the spread was too high." But Pendergast, according to court papers, was insistent, and to sweeten the deal offered to double Lee's take to $8,000. Only then did Lee agree...
...turned out, Lee's misgivings were well placed. Northwestern lost, but by only 17 points, and Pendergast lost all his bets...