The scandal rocked college basketball.
Martin Scorsese directed the film Goodfellas (1990), which is about the life of Henry Hill. Hill was a New York gangster who participated in a college basketball point-shaving scandal involving the 1978-79 Boston College men’s basketball team.
Henry Hill (photo, Forbes)
Hill made the connections and supplied finances for a Pittsburgh-based criminal organization with gangsters Anthony and Rocco Perla. The connection was through Rick Kuhn, a senior on the team who Perla’sco Perla’s high school friend.
The Perla Brothers picked basketball games, and Kuhn ensured Boston College fell short of the point spread. Kuhn was paid for this, and he sometimes included teammate Jim Sweeney in the scheme.
The Perla Brothers also set up a betting syndicate to make things look legit on the betting side. They also brought in another gangster, James Burke, and Hill to finance the payments to the players and the bookmaker’s network. Hill and Burke participated with the okay of Paul Vario, who was affiliated with the Lucchese family mob.
Henry Hill flew to Boston on November 16th, 1978, to meet with Kuhn and Sweeney. During the meeting, Hill asked them, “Which of the upcoming games did they feel we could have points?” Sweeney took out the schedule and circled the games (nine in all) against Holy Cross (two games), UConn, St. John’s, UCLA, Harvard, Providence, Fordham, and Rhode Island. The players gave the schedule to Hill and told him that these were the games we could mess around with, but they didn’t want to throw the entire game. The point spread was the focus.
Sweeney (L) and Kuhn (photo courtesy Medium)
The scheme continued for the season, and Hill and his mob friends paid the players well. But the ruse was eventually uncovered. NY authorities arrested Hill on unrelated drug trafficking charges, and during that investigation, they discovered that Hill had made frequent trips to Boston. Hill told them he was involved in a point-shaving scheme and’d tell a complete story if federal officials granted him full immunity.
A grand jury indicted Burke, Kuhn, the Perla brothers, and others. Hill was also listed as a co-conspirator but not named as a defendant. Through Hill, the Feds obtained telephone and wire records of extensive communications between the co-conspirators during the 1978-79 season.
During the four-week trial, Boston College player Kuhn and other conspirators were convicted on charges of conspiracy to commit sports bribery and interstate travel with intent to commit bribery. Kuhn was initially sentenced to ten years imprisonment, which was reduced to 28 months.
