Ohio State probe into athletes' cars awaits BMV investigation Bureau examining reported sale prices
Ohio State University's chief enforcer of NCAA rules said nearly three weeks ago that the school planned to ask outside investigators to examine dozens of car deals between OSU athletes, some of their family members and two Columbus car dealerships.
But the school has put plans for that investigation on hold until the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles concludes its independent examination of the dealers' roles in the
vehicle sales.
"The compliance office feels it would be most appropriate to wait until the BMV has concluded its investigation," OSU spokesman Jim Lynch wrote in an e-mail.
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Doug Archie, OSU's director of compliance, has said he has no reason to believe any violations occurred, but he acknowledged that the school mainly relies on the word of dealers and does not review paperwork after an athlete buys a vehicle.
The salesman and both owners of the dealerships said that the deals were legitimate and that they didn't give special deals to the athletes or their family members.
OSU officials said they have researched the vehicle identification numbers and reviewed the vehicle information filed by the athletes with the compliance office, and they found no irregularities.
The BMV cannot provide details about its investigation because it is not finished, said spokeswoman Lindsey Bohrer. She said it is unclear when the investigation will be complete.
The BMV, which licenses and regulates vehicle dealers and salespeople, has been investigating the transactions. State law requires dealers to accurately report sale prices for tax purposes. The Ohio Department of Taxation also is investigating the sales to determine whether all owed taxes were paid.
BMV investigators, however, have no explicit authority to determine whether the prices that athletes paid for their vehicles were appropriate.
Even before OSU pledged to investigate the car sales, compliance officials had decided months ago to increase scrutiny of players' vehicles.
The policy shift came before new questions arose recently about some athletes driving cars registered to dealers.
The Dispatch reviewed Franklin County Municipal Court records and found that between 2006 and 2010, eight football players and one men's basketball player received at least one traffic citation in Franklin County while driving vehicles with dealer license plates.
Archie initially said that he was unaware that three of the nine athletes were driving cars with dealer plates, but he later received information on two of the three.
After looking into the vehicle transactions, Archie said that eight of the nine players had justifiable reasons for driving cars with dealer plates. Some involved used-car purchases in which the athletes were issued dealer plates instead of cardboard temporary tags while waiting for their registrations from the state motor-vehicle agency.
One vehicle was a rental. And another involved an inaccurate license-plate number being reported on the public records.
The ninth transaction still is being examined by compliance officials.
Athletes are required by Ohio State to notify a coach or a compliance official when they drive dealer-tagged cars. Archie said there are only two acceptable reasons for driving a dealer's car: The athlete was taking it for a test drive or had it as a loaner during a car repair.
Internal audits of the OSU car-registration process have raised concerns.
Documents that the university released yesterday say that in 2006, an Ohio State internal-audit department review found that the car registration forms filled out by athletes were incomplete and sometimes inconsistent with the car registry maintained by University Transportation and Parking.
Last fall, the auditors reviewed car registrations of 152 athletes and observed vehicles driven by football players to spring practice. Auditors found that 44 athletes bought parking permits for, received parking tickets in, or were seen driving cars that weren't registered.
In a follow-up review, the auditors concluded in April that Ohio State has rectified the issues by planning for a beefed-up database, more frequent cross checks of other campus car-registration databases and increased NCAA-rules education of football and men's basketball players.
Archie said that the university has had no problems involving athletes driving "loaner" vehicles since he was hired in 2006.
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Dealers who have lent cars to OSU athletes have assured Archie that they aren't giving special deals to players, he said.
"We're taking the dealerships at their word," Archie said. "We've bounced it off other people to make sure that we don't have blinders on."
OSU's compliance department, which has been hailed as a model, has come under scrutiny in recent months following investigations into memorabilia sales by athletes, the ethical conduct of football coach Jim Tressel and athletes' car purchases.
The department now is expanding to eight full-time positions from six to monitor OSU's 1,100 athletes. Archie requested the two new positions before Christmas to keep pace with other major athletic departments.
The new workers will, among other things, help monitor the new car policy, under which athletes will be required to show documentation about their cars and how they pay for them.
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