Gallion: UT booster another NCAA witness Cottrell attorney says Memphis' Schledwitz is a Young adversary 01/23/04 By PAUL GATTIS Times Sports Staff [EMAIL PROTECTED] Defense attorney Tommy Gallion on Thursday identified a third secret witness in the NCAA's case against the Alabama football program. Gallion said that NCAA documents show that Karl Schledwitz, a Tennessee booster from Memphis, was an anonymous source for investigators in the probe against the Crimson Tide. The revelation came Thursday as Gallion, who is representing former Alabama assistant coaches Ronnie Cottrell and Ivy Williams in a suit against the NCAA, sifted through almost 8,000 pages of documents made available in the federal case against disassociated Tide booster Logan Young of Memphis. Also, Gallion said he plans to ask for a congressional investigation into the NCAA's dealings with Alabama at a news conference Tuesday in Birmingham. Cottrell and Williams will also be at the news conference to answer questions, Gallion said. Gallion has long included Schledwitz in his theory of a conspiracy by the NCAA and the University of Tennessee to bring down the Alabama football program. "He and Logan Young have been at each other's throats for years," Gallion said." Schledwitz gave a deposition in the case on April 22, 2003 in which he acknowledges he is friends with Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer and a member of the "Big Orange Club." Schledwitz also testified that he "talked with several individuals at the NCAA for the past five or six years." That includes Rich Johanningmeier, the investigator in the Tide case with whom Schledwitz said he had "numerous conversations." Gallion named Fulmer as a secret witness last week, citing similar NCAA documents. Gallion has also said recruiting analyst Tom Culpepper was a secret witness against Alabama. Gallion said he would release the documents relating to Schledwitz at Tuesday's news conference. Schledwitz claimed in his deposition to be the attorney representing Milton Kirk - the whistleblower in Memphis on the Albert Means scandal. Because of that relationship, Schledwitz decided to invoke attorney/client privilege and did not provide details of his role in the investigation. "We know (Schledwitz) took Milton Kirk to the NCAA to orchestrate this thing," Gallion said. "He admitted that he bragged at various parties in Tennessee that he was one of the ones who helped take Alabama down." Gallion also shed further light on his theory of the conspiracy. He said the NCAA had Tennessee "cooked" on everything from the Linda Bensel-Meyers (academic fraud case) to former Tide recruit and Vol player Kenny Smith. Fulmer sought information, Gallion said, from Smith to use against Alabama. "They were dead," Gallion said of the Tennessee program. But the Vols cleared themselves by putting the NCAA on Alabama's trail, Gallion said. "All hell has broken loose and people don't understand it," Gallion said. "When the deal was cut (with Tennessee), they dropped Linda Bensel-Meyers and she was furious. She's writing a book about this. Gallion said he wants a congressional investigation into "this mess" because of the participation of federal prosecutors in Memphis in the NCAA's case. "The thing that gives me the greatest concern is that (the NCAA) used the Memphis, Tennessee, prosecutorial authorities to put the final blow on Alabama," Gallion said. Gallion also said the NCAA's decision to clear Alabama of any possible future wrongdoing uncovered in the federal investigation had a specific motivation. The NCAA knew Gallion would soon be in possession of the 8,000 pages of documents the NCAA turned over to Young's lawyers, Gallion said. "They didn't do it because they had some altruistic motive," Gallion said. "They did it because they knew those documents were coming."
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