Breaking Cardinal Rules Read online

  BREAKING CARDINAL RULES

  Basketball and the Escort Queen

  Katina Powell

  with Dick Cady

  Breaking Cardinal Rules, Basketball and the Escort Queen

  Copyright ©2015 IBJ Book Publishing, LLC

  ISBN 978-1506-900-03-2 EBOOK

  October 2015

  Published and Distributed by

  First Edition Design Publishing, Inc.

  P.O. Box 20217, Sarasota, FL 34276-3217

  www.firsteditiondesignpublishing.com

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means ─ electronic, mechanical, photo-copy, recording, or any other ─ except brief quotation in reviews, without the prior permission of the author or publisher.

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  IBJ Book Publishing, LLC

  41 E. Washington St., Suite 200

  Indianapolis, IN 46204

  www.ibjbp.com

  Copyright © 2015 by IBJ Book Publishing, LLC

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of IBJ Book Publishing, LLC.

  Certified Fraud & Forensic Investigations (CFFI), Indianapolis, Indiana, provided mobile forensic services.

  www.WeCatchFraud.com

  ISBN 978-1-939550-28-6

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015948793

  First Edition

  Printed in the United States of America

  Much of this story is extracted from Katina Powell’s diary/journal entries. Whenever possible, the language has been preserved, with minor changes for clarity or grammar. Readers should be aware that some material is raw, graphic, and shocking. We have also used, as much as possible, direct quotes from interviews conducted for the purpose of explanation or amplification. Two dancers, TooTall and Coco, asked that their names be changed. In her journals Katina refers to the other dancers by their stage names.

  In every sense, then, this is Katina Powell’s story. Or maybe "Bam's" story. Many people know her by that nickname. But it isn't the only name she has used.

  ~ Editors

  KATINA’S ESCORT RULES

  1. NO hot hotels. Quality (Inn), Best Westerns, Hurstbourne, Ramada, Super 8. YES hotels. Red Roof, Extended Stay

  2. Circle the parking lot

  3. Never Say Price, Rate or Money. I take donations for my time and companionship. For the half hour $150 donations, $200 to the house

  4. Don’t answer door for strange people

  5. Meet them in Exit ALWAYS!!

  6. Never meet in the lobby!!!! EVER!! If it don’t seem right then it’s NOT right. Go with gut feeling

  7. Never take a check!! EVER!!

  Chapter One

  I FELT LIKE I WAS PART OF THE RECRUITMENT TEAM. A LOT OF THEM PLAYERS WENT TO LOUISVILLE BECAUSE OF ME.

  -Katina Powell

  Sometimes a perfectly ordinary day will unexpectedly open the door to perfectly extraordinary things.

  On a perfectly ordinary day in 2010, Katina Powell went to visit her friend Tink, who, like her, lived and worked in what some would call the mean streets in the west end of Louisville, Kentucky.

  In her late thirties and not happy about it, Katina was a single mother of three daughters struggling to find ways to make more money. Just recently, she thought she might have turned the corner. She’d always known men wanted her body, and she liked plenty of sex herself. Now, like waking up to the snap of a hypnotist’s fingers, she’d had a revelation. Men not only would pay for sex, some men were eager to pay, no questions asked.

  Easy money? A guy who owned a store in her neighborhood, a man she called The Arab, handed over one hundred dollars for three minutes of her time. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am, indeed. No overhead, no taxes, no complaints, no regrets. Sugar for sugar.

  Always ready to run with, if not exploit, an idea, Katina started working for Cheetah’s Escort Service. Good money could be had, but not necessarily steady money. Of everything she took in, she had to give sixty percent to Cheetah’s owner, and she was trying to figure out a way to get around that. She also started something she was proud of, a dance troupe that put on sexy shows in clubs and at occasional bachelor parties. The women were mostly unmarried friends of hers, good-looking party girls who didn’t mind strip-teasing.

  Naturally, a girl could pick up extra cash by giving customers the satisfaction they sought after becoming thoroughly inflamed watching a half-dozen chocolate-skinned babes flaunting their goodies.

  Tink was an intimate friend. He had a barber shop where the smell of marijuana wasn’t unknown. At the time the shop was called Cardinal Kuts. Tink was an avid University of Louisville fan, and his customers included some players from the school.

  He was the kind of man Katina could talk to about anything. Usually, when Katina came by to see what was happening, one or two of the guys who hung around the shop made a play for her, always without success. "No thanks, nigga," Katina snapped. She had a boyfriend she loved dearly. The sex business was just that—business.

  On this day, Tink had a proposal of his own. An unusual proposal.

  A very unusual proposal.

  How would you like to have your girls dance for some of the players at the U of L?

  Are you kidding? When?

  Tink knew Andre McGee, a graduate assistant working for Coach Rick Pitino in the University of Louisville’s storied basketball program. McGee wanted the girls to entertain some of the players and potential recruits.

  How many girls you need?

  Many as you can get. It’s worth $300, plus tips.

  Understand, like many Louisville residents and other Kentucky residents, Katina loved Cardinal basketball, worshipped the young black superstars who made up most of the team—they were celebrities, really—and thought Coach Pitino should have the Basketball Hall of Fame named after him.

  It didn’t matter that the coach recently had been caught up in a nasty scandal where a woman, now the divorced wife of Pitino’s equipment manager, had been found guilty of trying to extort

  $10 million from him based on a 2003 sexual encounter and abortion. The school had stood by its prized coach.

  To an inner-city girl who had dropped out of Catholic high school and was struggling to earn her GED, the 21,000-student University of Louisville was a kind of monolithic centerpiece in a separate world all its own, a world of brains, money, academic achievement, and national sports glory, especially on the basketball court.

  She also knew something about McGee. Out of California, only twenty-three now, he had been starting point guard for the Cardinals for four seasons. He was 5 foot 10, a muscular 180 pounds, and a slick scorer. Twice his Cards had made it to the Elite Eight in the NCAA tournament. He had played one year of pro ball in Germany before Pitino took him on to help handle and guide the players.

  The responsibilities of his job included assisting in “on-campus recruiting efforts.”

  Among major universities, recruiting competition is fierce. The revenues are enormous—Louisville's basketball income is one of the highest in the country, and Pitino is one of the highest-paid coaches. In basketball programs, highly touted potential recruits are wooed like young princes and treated like celebrities. Victories, national glory and millions of dollars sometimes will hinge on the decisions, or perhaps whims, of adolescents still in high school.

  In 2010, for example, Pitino put a priority on signing McDonald's All-American guard Rodney Purvis from North Carolina. Sought by half a dozen other large universities, Purvis visited Louisville and verbally committed to play there, partly because a man he knew had joined
Pitino's staff. Not six months later, Purvis de-committed and chose North Carolina State because his friend had taken another job. Purvis did not participate in Katina's activities.

  With her visit set up for an approaching evening, Katina had no problem rounding up dancers—girls with stage names like Meka, Skyy, Honey and Amber, while Katina danced using the name Platinum. They were eager, even thrilled. They gathered up their skimpy costumes—spangled bras, thongs, sequined bikini panties and the like—and piled into the car.

  The University of Louisville! Basketball stars! It would be a night to remember.

  Or maybe the first of many nights to remember.

  The event was to be held at the dormitory where many of the players lived under McGee’s putative supervision. The Billy Minardi Hall, near the Greek houses on South Fourth Street, is a two-story brick building named in honor of Pitino’s brother-in-law, one of the World Trade Center victims on 9/11. The facility has one-and two-bedroom suites, a learning center, lounge and recreation room. For the students who pay to stay there, a double-room starts at around $3,000 a semester. McGee had his own rooms.

  Dorm where the men's basketball team resided

  It was part of the main campus, though not in the noisy, nosy heart of everything. It had a parking lot and a drive behind the building. The front and back had double doors, opened with key cards, which were monitored sometimes by a single security guard. The building also had a convenient, let us say discreet, single door around the side, through which special night-time visitors could be escorted, say five or six attractive and obviously excited women.

  The first of many nights to remember began with excitement, all right. That evening, leaving from the parking lot was star Cardinal point guard Preston Knowles, who had finished the 2009-2010 season as the Big East leader in three-point shooting percentage. It was like seeing a movie star in the flesh.

  McGee met the women at the side door.

  He was flamboyant:

  "I’m McGee, how you doing?

  The girls look good."

  They went into an empty dorm room.

  Katina related in her journal:

  I’d never been there before. The rooms were like a living room with two bedrooms with bathrooms, like a barracks.

  The players were in another room.

  Katina's girls thought the night couldn’t have gone better. Katina didn’t think it would be repeated.

  Dancers' side door entrance of Billy Minardi Hall

  But this would be the first of nearly two dozen outings, all following a similar routine.

  McGee was in control of a lot when it came to the dorm. Andre told me how he wanted it done, but usually it was for me to send the girls out one at a time. There were seven or eight players and music from an iPod with speakers. Andre played this one song 'Racks on racks' (money on money) by rapper YC that drove the girls nuts - they were so sick of it. The girls stripped down to nothing. They were my friends, so they were willing to do it. While they were dancing, Andre would find out which dancer each recruit and player wanted to have sex with. Then he would work a side-deal with me to negotiate the price. Usually $100-$120 each. Pay was always upfront. Andre paid me and I paid the girls on the spot. After the dancing, some of them went into other rooms with players.

  It wasn't just players and recruits who enjoyed this kind of entertainment. So did some of their fathers. Of one, Katina recalled:

  The Dad said he more than likely will send his son to Louisville due to the "more than extra" activities. He said he will call in the morning for two dancers if he has time before he leaves.

  At the peak of the dormitory and off-campus entertainment more than $10,000 cash changed hands to Katina for supplying the women. This does not include the hundreds of one dollar bills thrown at the dancers at each party by McGee, the recruits and players. Nor does it include the money paid to the women who had sex with the recruits afterward.

  So frequent were the escapades that Katina would later say, especially after the Cardinals won the 2012-2013 NCAA championship:

  I felt like I was part of the recruitment team. A lot of them players went to Louisville because of me.

  If Katina deserved some sort of whispered, back-handed credit for her illicit and decidedly erotic services, so did her three daughters. All of them worked for or with her in the sex trade.

  Chapter Two

  PEOPLE MAY THINK THAT I EXPOSE MY KIDS. BUT, SHIT, THEY ENJOY THEMSELVES; THEY MEET NEW PEOPLE... FOR THOSE WHO HAVEA PROBLEM WIT’ THIS, KISS MY ASS.

  -Katina Powell

  Across America it is likely more than one mother has nudged or pushed a daughter into renting out her body.

  The Four Horsemen of Our Apocalypse—greed, poverty, drugs and alcohol—have a way of shoving morality into the nearest dark closet with the hope that it won’t come out while the money’s still coming in.

  Certainly it’s at least possible some misguided or sociopathic mother has sent a second daughter along the proverbial primrose path of prostitution.

  But three daughters, working with Mom at times without recrimination, and certainly without apology?

  People may think that I expose my kids. But, shit, they enjoy themselves, they meet new people. Believe me, they have their own lives, but they enjoy the perks of shows. For those who have a problem wit' this, kiss my ass.

  To understand how this could happen—to the extent it can be understood—you must try to understand Katina Powell.

  Knowing about her helps explain how she became a kind of clandestine, off-the-books, recruiting assistant for the University of Louisville as she arranged 22 night-time parties at the men’s basketball dormitory or other places over nearly four years.

  The answers, in part, can be found in journals or diaries Katina kept to record her life in the sex trade, her thoughts, her fears, and her dreams. These outpourings fill most of five books with a story that is alternately fascinating and repelling, brutally candid, narcissistic, sometimes poignant, sometimes pitiable.

  Page in one of Katina's journals showing 19 of 22 U of L shows

  Besides details of outings at the University of Louisville, they provide an unvarnished, and perhaps unprecedented, look inside part of what authorities call America’s $1 billion-a-year escort business.

  Nowhere in them will you find an act of redemption or a bracing moral lesson. Sex is a natural currency. Marijuana is almost always near at hand.

  This is a woman full of contradictions. Katina could be hot or cold with customers as the need dictated, but she was always romantically passionate, and ferociously jealous, with her long-time boyfriend.

  She might at one point work with her daughters peddling sex—and take them to church the next day. At times she prayed to God, occasionally with the hope that God would drum up more business. Sometimes an entry in one of her journals will be a poem or song—followed soon enough by a spite-filled, obscenity-laced diatribe against some girlfriend or rival.

  In a sense, the strangest contradiction is this: Although Katina is from certain drug-ridden streets of Louisville, her life could have been—perhaps should have been—much different.

  Hers undoubtedly was a happy childhood. She wasn’t a ghetto kid from a broken home. She wasn’t molested or otherwise abused. No one pushed or forced her in the direction she went. She more or less made her own way. For part of her adult life, she had worked a variety of indifferent or menial jobs, including cleaning houses and apartments. Selling sex offered the possibility of an income of which she had only dreamed.

  Odd as it sounds, she approached various aspects of the sex business with a calculating, entrepreneurial spirit. Today, a 43-year-old grandmother, she’s smart, literate, a quick thinker, able to play roles as circumstances dictate, and often bubbling over with ideas. Certainly she isn’t lazy; far from it.

  Born in 1972, the third youngest of eight children, she doted on her father, a hard-working foreman for the city parks department.

  Her mothe
r, a loving woman who tried to provide a normal upbringing for her family, died of breast cancer when Katina was in her early teens. Growing up, the children played with friends, had dogs, rabbits and hamsters, and always had plenty to eat.

  "I was young. I didn't understand it," Katina said of her mother's death. Any pain was eased by her father's love. "I was really close to my father."

  Her father did a good job playing the role of a single parent, Katina recalled. He also kept her busy after her mother's death, by making her step up "really quick" in helping manage the household and her siblings.

  Although Katina’s father didn’t go to church, the family prayed at meals and on other occasions. She went to St. Columba Catholic School. As part of the First Communion ceremony she swore to renounce Satan. In the eighth grade she played basketball. She graduated to Holy Cross High School. Briefly, she took journalism classes.

  That was the child who dreamed of becoming a superstar, perhaps a dancer, maybe a millionaire.

  She would end up fulfilling one of those dreams, though not quite in the way she would have imagined back then.

  The adult she grew into has used many names—Bam, Platinum, Ashley, Crystal, Kream, Jazzmine, to name a few.

  Katina as Platinum

  Over recent years, some two dozen women have worked with her or for her. They danced in clubs and private parties, and some worked as escorts. Men on the prowl could find them through different kinds of sexy or alluring advertising, including the Internet service Backpage.com.