Karen Sypher Draws New Charges In Rick Pitino Extortion Case.

Sypher indicted on new charges in Pitino extortion case
By Andrew Wolfson

Karen Cunagin Sypher, already charged with trying to extort money from University of Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino, was indicted on additional counts Wednesday, including retaliating against Pitino for reporting the alleged extortion plot.

The new indictment also accuses Sypher of an additional count of lying to the FBI when she told agents that her relationship with another subject of the investigation was “strictly business” when it was in fact “an intimate personal relationship.”

It also adds two new extortion counts, including one for causing threats to be delivered by mail to Pitino on March 22. That count apparently stems from a letter that Sypher had her divorce lawyer, Dana Kolter, send to Pitino, demanding $10 million in exchange for her silence “on allegations of a criminal nature. “

Pitino has admitted that he had sex at a Louisville restaurant with Sypher one time in 2003 and that he paid her money so she could buy health insurance after she said for an abortion. But he has denied her allegations that he raped her, and Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Stengel has said the claims are “void of credibility.

Sypher’s criminal defense lawyer, Jim Earhart, said the new indictment “doesn’t appear to change anything,” although one of the new charges carries a 10-year maximum sentence, which is longer than the penalties for the two counts with which she was originally indicted last May.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John E. Kuhn Jr. said his office would have no comment on the new charges.

The six-count superseding indictment doesn’t identify the subject with whom Sypher allegedly had the intimate relationship.

Kolter’s lawyer, Rob Eggert, would say only that his client will not be charged in the case.

“Other than that, I have no comment,” Eggert said.

A lawyer for Lester Goetzinger, who admitted calling Pitino on Sypher’s behalf, told reporters in June that Sypher had performed a “sexual favor” for Goetzinger before he made the calls.

Goetzinger, 49, was charged with aiding and abetting Sypher by making three phone calls to Pitino that the indictment said included “a threat to make public claims concerning events alleged to have occurred in 2003.” The government agreed to dismiss the charge against Goetzinger if he successfully completes a yearlong diversion program.

Sypher, who has been released on her own recognizance on the condition that she make no further statements “injurious to Coach Pitino's reputation,” is scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 22.

She previously pleaded not guilty to the two-count May indictment.

The federal grand jury charged Wednesday that Sypher retaliated against a federal witness and victim — Pitino — when she filed a criminal complaint with the Louisville Metro Police Department in July alleging that he had raped her five years earlier.

Editor's comment: my, oh my.