Summaries

Synopsis

Henry Hill was a New York based mobster who answered to Jimmy Burke, a cold-blooded killer. Hill befriended a Pittsburgh criminal named Paul Mazzei while they were in the Lewisburg Penitentiary. Hill lived by the mobsters' creed promising never to rat out your associates.In 1978, Boston College was in the process of becoming a very successful basketball program. Ernie Cobb, a poor kid from the inner city, who was the team's leading scorer and best athlete. Jim Sweeney was an All-American young man from a New England prep school. Rick Kuhn was an older player with more life experience having played minor league baseball for a couple years before entering college.Many long-time fans are now familiar with the Boston College basketball point shaving scandal, where the Mafia, led by wise guy Henry Hill, recruited and bribed several members of the 1978-79 basketball team to fix games. The point-shaving scheme was conceived by Rocco and Anthony Perla, who recruited Boston College's Rick Kuhn, a high school friend of Rocco, to fix games where Boston College was heavily favored. Kuhn agreed to participate and brought in his teammates Jim Sweeney into the scheme. While player and mobster memories of their initial meeting vary concerning the willingness of Sweeney to participate, an agreement was made to fix games and pay the players.The Perla brothers mobilized a betting syndicate to maximize their potential gain from the scheme. They contacted a local friend, Paul Mazzei, who was known to have influence within major New York gambling circles. Mazzei in turn contacted Henry Hill, a Lucchese crime family associate from New York who had befriended Mazzei while both men were serving sentences in a federal prison. Mazzei and the Perla brothers were particularly hopeful that Hill would enlist the support of his associate, James Burke, to finance the payments to the players and to set up a network of bookmakers who were in on the scheme. Henry Hill delivered and used his association with mobster Jimmy Burke to get the backing of the Lucchese family in New York to provide the money and connections to make the point shaving scheme a reality. Jimmy Burke became a mythical figure of whatever pressure Henry Hill needed to enforce the players to participate.The first game that was to be fixed was a Boston College game against Providence. Boston College blew out Providence and the New York Mafia lost $250,000 on the deal. After the game against Providence broke badly for the gamblers, the Perla brothers recruited the leading scorer of the Eagles, Ernie Cobb. In the Harvard game, Cobb scored about half his average points and the Eagles won by only three points. Anthony Perla paid Cobb $1000 for his efforts. As games went on Jim Sweeney got paid as well from money orders that were sent to Kuhn. Sweeney confided in his roommates who encouraged him to report the deal to the athletic department. Sweeney was concerned how he would be affected and who might get hurt if he did. His lack of relationship with his head coach Dr. Tom Davis caused him to remain silent. He vowed to play hard throughout the rest of the season and hope the situation would go away.Meanwhile in New York, everyone believed that Jimmy Burke had pulled off the largest robbery in US History by stealing more than $3 million from a Lufthansa airplane at the JFK Airport. As a result, Jimmy Burke was placed under 24-hour surveillance by the police.The Boston College basketball season went on. Money wires went from Pittsburgh to Rick Kuhn who was supposed to pay the other players. Before the February 3, 1979, game against Fordham, Jim Sweeney got a person visit from Rocco and Tony Perla who sought to insure his cooperation with veiled threats of physical violence to players that didn't hold up their end of the bargain. Sweeney missed a free throw that helped Fordham's efforts in covering the point spread. Teammate Michael Bowie became suspicious and started questioning Jim Sweeney what was going on.Point shaving went on for several games, finishing up with a game against Holy Cross where the Crusaders were favored to win by 7 points. Holy Cross would only win by 2 points, 98-96, after Ernie Cobb scored eight points in the final minute to bring the Eagles close. The scheme's creators lost tens of thousands of dollars on the Holy Cross game. The scheme ended. Boston College finished a successful season at 22-9. Ernie Cobb graduated. Rick Kuhn left school and Jim Sweeney became a celebrated award-winning Eagles basketball player and naively believed the situation was behind him.During this time, the FBI's main focus was on the Lufthansa robbery. The whole point shaving conspiracy was uncovered in 1980, when Henry Hill was indicted by New York state authorities on drug trafficking charges. Hill turned informant in exchange for avoiding prison time. A grand jury indicted Jimmy Burke, Paul Mazzei, the scheme's co-creators Rocco and Tony Perla and Rick Kuhn based on Hill's testimony.The Boston Globe and their reporter Lesley Visser reported incorrectly that Ernie Cobb and Michael Bowie were the main players investigated in the point shaving scandal, though it was only Sweeney and Kuhn who had confessed to taking money in their FBI interview. As Henry Hill was about to enter the witness protection program, he worked with a Sports Illustrated writer to develop a tell all article on the entire point shaving scam for $10,000. The FBI was worried it would ruin the case they were building against Burke. Sweeney claims the accusations in the magazine article were outlandish. Boston College basketball moved on reaching the sweet sixteen and elite eight in consecutive years.The final indictment included only Burke, the Perla Brothers, Paul Mazzei and Rick Kuhn. Cobb and Sweeney were not indicted. The trial was held in New York because Jimmy Burke was the real focus of the investigation. Jury members were intimidated and feared for their safety in being assigned to the trial of the known organized crime figure. In the testimony, Henry Hill proved to be a poor witness but his sleaziness spilled over on Jimmy Burke. When Jim Sweeney testified, he tried to distance himself by the actions taken by Rick Kuhn. The jury found the defendants guilty and sentences were passed from 4 to 20 years. The prosecution had used the trial as a way to get to Jimmy Burke. Later Henry Hill pinned a murder on Burke. Burke would die in prison. Some of the mobsters lost respect for Henry Hill who had ratted them out, though Mazzei and Hill later reunited as friends.Henry Hill gained notoriety in his portrayal in the movie "Goodfellas" and died of a heart attack at age 69. Ernie Cobb was found Not Guilty in a separate trial and had a seventeen-year career playing basketball in Israel. Jim Sweeney became a successful business man but his ties to Boston College have been severed. Rick Kuhn insists that Jim Sweeney was more involved that he has ever let on. Kuhn served 28 months in prison on a reduced sentence. The Boston College point shaving scandal was neither the first or the last in college basketball. Gambling on games continues to grow in volume and influence around college sports.