Rick Kuhn, the Boston School basketball participant who was convicted of taking part in a high-profile scandal orchestrated largely by Henry Hillthe mobster performed by Ray Liotta within the 1990 movie “Goodfellas,” died Dec. 22 at his dwelling in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. He was 69 years outdated.
The trigger was pancreatic most cancers, mentioned Chuck Finder, who collaborated with Mr. Kuhn on a not too long ago accomplished memoir.
Mr. Kuhn was a 6-foot-5 reserve ahead and heart for the Boston School Eagles in 1978 when he agreed to take part in a conspiracy to make sure that his staff received by fewer factors than the margin — the variety of factors, with which oddsmakers make a staff the favourite or underdog in sure video games — or misplaced by extra.
Little tips, like a participant deliberately committing a essential foul or showing to attempt to steal the ball however permitting his opponent to go round him to attain, may change the margin of victory.
The scandal started to unfold when Mr. Kuhn took his teammate and shut good friend, Jim Sweeney, to a resort room close to Boston’s Logan Airport to fulfill with Mr. Hill; Paul Mazzei, a drug trafficker whom Hill met in federal jail; and Tony Perla, a petty gambler.
“You assume within the preliminary section they need inside data,” Mr. Kuhn wrote in a memoir. However two hours into the assembly, the subject of factors shaving got here up and the gamers have been requested how a lot cash they might be keen to place into such a scheme.
”I mentioned, ‘100 thousand,”’ Mr. Kuhn recalled, to which Mr. Hill replied, “I like that child.”
Trying over Boston School’s 1978-79 schedule, Mr. Hill, Mr. Mazzei and Mr. Perla mentioned ”how a lot they will wager and the way a lot we will make,” Mr. Kuhn wrote. He added: “Once we have been leaving, Tony gave us $1,000 for coming” — the equal of slightly below $5,000 immediately, and some huge cash for college students like Mr. Kuhn and Mr. Sweeney.
Mr. Hill was not solely the self-proclaimed “Boston School basketball fixture,” as he declared in a 1981 Sports activities Illustrated article. (written with Douglas S. Looney); he was additionally an affiliate of the Lucchese crime household. He quickly imported James (Jimmy Gentle) Burke — a convicted extortionist who was the suspected mastermind of the 1978 multi-million greenback Lufthansa heist. at John F. Kennedy — to make the bookmaker a part of the factors financial savings scheme work. (Mr. Burke was performed by Robert De Niro in “Goodfellas.”)
Mr. Hill was charged in 1980. on drug costs in Nassau County, New York, and was implicated within the Lufthansa theft when questioned in regards to the Lufthansa case by federal prosecutors Edward A. Macdonald and an FBI agent. Surprisingly, Mr. Hill additionally disclosed the point-shaving scheme and his function in it and was granted immunity in all circumstances.
After Mr. McDonald’s workplace corroborated Mr. Hill’s story, a federal grand jury in Brooklyn in July 1981. indicted Mr. Kuhn, Mr. Mazzei, Mr. Burke, Tony Perla and his brother Rocco, a highschool good friend of Mr. Kuhn’s, on costs of racketeering, conspiracy to commit sports activities bribery and interstate journey in help of racketeering .
The indictment cited six video games throughout the 1978-79 season as proof of the repair.
Mr. Kuhn, who had already admitted his function within the scheme, rejected Mr. McDonald’s provide to cooperate towards the opposite defendants.
“I knew if I did not say something, I might go to jail,” Mr. Kuhn wrote. “If I had mentioned something, these different guys may have given me a life sentence like: chopping my life quick.”
After a month-long trial, the defendants have been convicted in November of all three costs. Mr. Kuhn, Mr. Mazzei and Tony Perla obtained 10-year sentences, Mr. Burke obtained a 20-year sentence, and Rocco Perla was sentenced to 4 years. Mr. Kuhn served 28 months.
Two different gamers — Mr. Sweeney and Ernie Cobb, the staff’s star — additionally took cash as a part of the points-collecting scheme, Mr. McDonald mentioned. Mr. Sweeney, who was not charged, testified that he felt tricked by Mr. Kuhn into becoming a member of the assembly on the airport resort after which too intimidated by Mr. Hill to refuse.
Mr. Cobb was charged in a separate however comparable federal case in 1983. He was acquitted. Mr. Kuhn testified on this case.
Richard John Kuhn was born on July 18, 1955. in Swissvale, Pennsylvania, east of Pittsburgh. His father, Frederick, labored on railroad alerts. His mom, Geraldine (McGuire) Kuhn, ran the house and, after elevating her youngest son, labored as a bartender and bookkeeper and owned a magnificence salon.
Rick performed basketball and baseball in highschool and was drafted in 1973. from the Cincinnati Reds. His pitching profession within the Reds’ minor league system ended after two seasons when he tore the rotator cuff in his pitching shoulder.
He was quickly employed as an assistant baseball coach on the Boise, Pennsylvania campus of Allegheny County Neighborhood School. He additionally took some enterprise programs and performed on the varsity basketball staff. Boston School recruited him throughout the 1976 Nationwide Junior Basketball Event. in Hutchinson, Kan.
During his three years at Boston College, Mr. Kuhn averaged simply 4.3 factors per recreation. However he performed sufficient minutes to have an effect on the betting scheme, Mr McDonald mentioned.
Mr. Kuhn didn’t graduate. He performed basketball in Argentina earlier than his indictment and allegedly ran a nightclub in Pittsburgh whereas on trial.
In 1985, two years into his jail time period, he testified before the President’s Commission on Organized Crime that faculty basketball gamers have been most susceptible to monetary strain from gamblers “of their junior and senior years, when it grew to become clear that they might not have profitable careers” as skilled gamers.
In 1990, chatting with the ABCD Camp, a showcase of high highschool basketball recruits, Mr. Kuhn mentioned he thought his sentence was too harsh. However he added: “I made a mistake. I’ve dedicated against the law.”
After being launched from jail, he owned condominium buildings and labored in safety and development.
The scandal was the topic of a e-book, “Fastened: How Goodfellas Purchased Boston School Basketball” (2000) by David Porter, for which Mr. Kuhn didn’t give interviews, and an ESPN documentary “I Play for the Mafia” (2014)which Mr. Liotta associated.
Joe Lavin, the documentary’s director, mentioned in an interview that he had spoken with Mr. Kuhn in individual and by telephone. Mr. Kuhn declined to talk on digital camera, however “he would information me and transient me on sure issues,” Mr. Lavin recalled. He added, “He had a daughter in junior excessive or highschool who performed sports activities, and he did not need it to turn out to be a narrative that affected every thing she did.”
However Mr. Finder, the contributor to Mr. Kuhn’s memoir, wrote in an electronic mail that in his ultimate months, Mr. Kuhn “needed to inform the true story that he had by no means informed earlier than. The story he by no means totally shares along with his family.
The primary draft of the manuscript was accomplished two weeks earlier than his demise.
Mr. Kuhn is survived by his spouse, Patti Jo (Bean) Kuhn; two daughters, Annie Kuhn and Carrie Kuhn-Wagner; son John; two brothers, Frederick and Jerry; and three grandchildren. A earlier marriage resulted in divorce.
Mr. Hill died in 2012, Mr. Liotta in 2022
Mr. McDonald, the prosecutor who performed himself on ”Goodfellas” and earned a bachelor’s diploma from Boston School in 1968, befriended Mr. Kuhn after the trial.
”He made a silly mistake as a senior in faculty,” Mr. McDonald mentioned in an interview. “I felt sorry for him. A lot of the guys I convicted, I did not really feel dangerous.”
Someday, he recalled, Mr. Kuhn was interviewed by FBI brokers in federal court docket in Brooklyn whereas he was nonetheless serving his sentence in jail. Mr. McDonald informed him that he and a number of other mates have been going to see Boston School play that afternoon within the Large East Convention basketball match at Madison Sq. Backyard.
Jokingly, Mr. Kuhn requested, “Can I include you?”
