University of Louisville mafia was anything but a bunch of 'good guys' | Joseph Gerth

Joseph Gerth | Courier Journal

Show Caption Hide Caption What the U of L Foundation audit found Auditors examined records going back six years detailing the foundation’s complex web of real estate deals, sub-companies, financial transactions, no-bid contracts and compensation.

This column has been updated to further explain U of L Foundation payments to Mark Jurich.

Every time the University of Louisville Foundation met with former President Jim Ramsey, you get the feeling the theme song from “The Godfather” should have been playing in the background.

The forensic audit released Thursday paints a devastating picture of an organization, led by “Jimmy the Comb-Over” Ramsey, that makes the foundation look more like Cosa Nostra than an arm of an educational institution.

You had self-dealing and lavish spending. You had imploring emails to attorneys to try to figure out how to keep their actions hidden from the press and the public.

It was a secretive organization that tried to keep things from the media and others. Kathleen “Katie the Queen” Smith had a particular dislike of my colleague, Andy Wolfson, writing that he "is not known for his objective reporting."

It seems she would have liked to have filled Wolfson full of lead and stashed him in the trunk of her car at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium. (That car, of course, would be the one paid for with her $12,000 per year car allowance from the foundation.)

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She advised another administrator to destroy a record, in what looks like a violation of state open records law. And she sought to conceal foundation matters — and huge payoffs that she, Jimmy the Comb-Over and others were getting — in a series of shell corporations that existed to confuse pesky reporters and others who came looking for answers.

Since 2010, the foundation and the school have combined to pay Athletic Director “Tommy the Enforcer” Jurich more than $19 million. Even Jurich’s son, Mark “Tommy Jr.” Jurich was paid nearly $800,000 by the foundation.

Even though Tommy Jr. worked for his dad, he was listed as an employee of Jimmy the Comb-Over to avoid the appearance of nepotism.

Sports Information Director Kenny Klein said folks in the athletics department didn't know that the salary was coming from the foundation, however.

The Juriches weren’t the only ones.

Nearly 30 people were receiving payments from the foundation or its affiliates, including Jimmy the Comb-Over, who was paid more than $12 million since 2010, and former provost “Shirley the Scholar” Willhnganz, who got $6.7 million.

Katie the Queen was paid $4.4 million.

Throughout all this time, U of L was raising tuition for its students.

Ramsey and Smith didn’t do this alone.

All this took place while their capos — the foundation’s board — was supposed to be watching over them.

When members of the old University of Louisville’s board of trustees, like Steve Wilson, Craig Greenberg and Emily Bingham, began raising questions, Jimmy the Comb-Over’s capos pushed back.

In a move that eventually led to Gov. Matt Bevin removing the entire board of trustees and replacing it with one of his own choosing, the capos claimed that the board was dysfunctional.

As Joe Valachi, the renowned mobster once said, “You live by the gun and the knife and you die by the gun and the knife.”

Eight former members of the foundation’s board of directors refused to be interviewed by the auditors, including former chairman Robert “Blind Bobby” Hughes and former vice chairman “Burt the Banker” Deutsch, who for years ran the foundation’s financial committee.

Blind Bobby tweeted on Thursday that those who declined to be interviewed simply “decided not to continue in the negatives.”

Among other things the auditors found was that millions of dollars were lost on bad investments and more that $50 million was loaned to a subsidiary of the foundation that likely will never be repaid. The foundation spent $17.6 million on executive compensation and trips to bowl games from a fund that wasn’t meant for those purposes.

The audit goes on for 135 pages. One bad revelation after another.

It’s too soon to tell if anyone will be prosecuted but it would be a huge surprise if the FBI and federal prosecutors haven’t been poring over the audit report since it hit the internet on Thursday.

What’s clear is they’re not going to find a lot of “good guys” responsible for this mess.

Joseph Gerth's column runs on most Sundays and at various times throughout the week. He can be reached at 502-582-4702 or by email at jgerth@courier-journal.com.