Breaking Cardinal Rules Read online

  However, demand for her girls at the university had waned.

  On April 8, 2013, the Cardinals made a furious comeback to beat Michigan and win the NCAA basketball tournament 82-76. The triumph made Pitino the first Division 1 basketball coach to win the title with two different schools.

  It was a boost for the University of Louisville and a boost for Pitino as well. For nearly three years the cloud of scandal had hung over him because of his sexual encounter in 2003 with a woman who later married one of Pitino's employees. Although the matter was more or less settled in 2010, any lingering taint had now been banished.

  Coincidentally or not, McGee’s request for dancers also had diminished. On April 9th, Powell texted McGee:

  On May 16, 2013 she complained in a text:

  In June, Katina got an answer—an important potential recruit.

  Been a long time since we’ve been up to U of L to do a show. McGee texted me like, what’s up? He wanted me to bring three girls up there for a new recruit named JaQuan Lyle, he and his friend. I took Rod-Ni, TooTall, Jazmine and Shay, who calls herself Sammi. TooTall made $100, Shay made $100, and Jazzy made nothing because she did absolutely nothing. They was still pumped up about winning the championship, wanted us to do it for free (never that!).

  Lyle, a point guard from Evansville, Indiana, signed with Louisville but de-committed and in 2015 signed with Ohio State. The message exchange between Katina and McGee leading up to this totaled 22 texts.

  We saw Montrezl Harrell, and a new guy named Chris. It’s crazy ‘cause since the championship they have gotten so cocky. Like they used to be the nicest people, but now they are feeling themselves.

  Afterwards we saw Chane Behanan, he was going to an all-white party. He reminded me that his b-day is Sept. 24, so he wants a show. McGee said that I had given his money back he would give me the signed Maker's Mark bottle by Rick Pitino, and it’s gonna be worth something in 15 years. But I’m cool. So until next time.

  Two days later, Katina asked McGee in a text:

  This is a reference to a dancer named TooTall. She was especially popular for a specialty trick that men found particularly exciting.

  New business came from elsewhere for a time.

  In July, 2013 Katina wrote from the escort scene:

  Unbelievable. I had a client today, an old white man.

  He wanted me to be his little nigga bitch. I tell ya, white people trip me the fuck out. A bunch of nigga lovers.

  So far in a day I made $1,000, no kidding. I had some good clients and I had some ridiculous clients today. In the end I had one client, he was kind of young, that worked for the Galt House. It was 5 a.m. and I didn’t know what to expect. I seriously thought when the session was over that he was gonna stick me up for the money. But he was a perfect gentleman.

  Next, Rod-Ni and Shay went to the Courtyard Marriott for two men met through the Universal Soul Circus. One man gave Shay $80 for sexual services. He was a midget. Rod-Ni did her business (with the other man) while his son was there.

  Meanwhile, Katina made $540 on an unusual trip to Elizabethtown, Kentucky. She explained:

  Finally the couple thing. These people have been asking me to come to E-Town for a lady named Wilma. She was around 60 years old. She was cute to be an older woman.

  It was crazy ‘cause this man controlled this woman so much that it was scary. They asked me to put on some lingerie and I agreed. She wouldn’t do anything without him. I was so nervous that it was beyond crazy. Once the session was over (a whole two hours) I was relieved. I don’t think I wanna do that again.

  Escorting, it seemed, occupied so much of Katina's time, there wasn’t time for dance outings. In August, she wrote:

  I have so many girls that want me to put them on or help them out. I told you bitches the clubs ain’t poppin’ at all. So far I’ve had Miss Jay, Precious, Ne-Ne and a few others that wanna make something crack in Louisville. So far the only thing that’s working for me is stupid ass BP (Backpage). The shit is so addictive that it’s sickening. I wish I could help everybody but I can’t.

  Although there were no dance outings at the University of Louisville, several of the players and former players were around.

  On August 13:

  T-Will came to town for a few days and called McGee to get in touch with Rod-Ni. He’s been wanting Rod-Ni since the beginning of time. Well, I don’t know what happened but he changed his mind. So I’m asleep and Rod-Ni comes in.

  My phone goes off with a number I’ve never seen before.

  So Rod-Ni’s like, T-Will’s gonna call you. I’m like for what?

  She said I don’t know; he’s gonna call you though.

  Now here’s how he starts the conversation. ‘What’s up?

  I heard you’re the queen of high prices?’ I’m like, what?

  He was like, 'yeah, do you wanna come see me?' I get there, Courtyard Marriott. I’m up stairs and the door was cracked. So I stood in the doorway ‘till he got back. He asked me for a massage. I massaged his back, then he pulled down his shorts and asked me to massage his ass. That just blew me away. Another nigga who wants a bitch to play with their ass.

  Shit is getting crazy.

  Rod-Ni was mad at Katina because she took the call from T-Will. Her daughter was just star-struck, she reasoned. Katina saw things different than her daughter.

  I don’t see none of these fools as a catch. I look at them as banks. My feelings are personal.

  I don’t like sharing them with any of these jerks.

  Katina wanted to stop posting on Backpage. She wrote:

  It’s getting crazy and real….just too much to it all.

  Nothing crazy has happened and I knock on wood. Thank you, Jesus. It’s just my time to bow out of this. Plus I miss my Shay.

  But listen to this. I had a client yesterday, he was white, sexy as fuck. He wanted a massage. We talked about professional shit. We smoked a blunt and when it came time to get a massage he was like, baby girl, I’m good, but you can keep the money. Then called the next morning and asked me did I wanna go to breakfast. Fuck, NAW!!

  At the end of August, McGee wanted dancers. Katina sent a text:

  As Katina explained in her diary:

  McGee called and asked if I could bring two females up to U of L to ‘take care of’ two new recruits and a parent who is visiting. Later he called and said he needed a whole show. I’m like, nigga, make up your damn mind. He was like, I really want y’all to do this show for Earl Clark but Coach is talking their heads off. So bottom line we didn’t do the show.

  Would have been nice to see Earl Clark $$$.

  Clark was a former Louisville star who played for the Brooklyn Nets and other teams in the NBA.

  Often McGee and Katina would go into another room and sit and talk about the pressure he was under while the side-deals were going on.

  At the last U of L show McGee confided in Katina:

  McGee said shit has really changed up there. Players ain’t listening or taking this game serious. SAD!! He was depressed. He didn't feel he had control. It was written all over his face.

  The text exchange between McGee and Katina included a change in time, because, McGee said, "Coach is talking they head to death... might be too late."

  Meantime, Katina had trouble, again, with Shay.

  Katina got a call from Shay, hearing a disturbing conversation Shay was having with a man:

  She called me one day and said, ‘Mama, listen to this.’ …

  ‘Dude, that’s glass that got on me.’ Then I heard him say, ‘Bitch, if you kick me I will be the last person you ever kick.’ Then the phone went blank.

  She told me he hit her twice in her head and almost broke her leg. I panicked like crazy.

  Shay was in Texas. She managed to take his truck and get to a Greyhound station.

  When she got back (to Louisville) she told me the most unbelievable stories.

  Lambo is the pimp’s name, 29 from Houston. He has eight hos, as they w
ould say. Drives a green Hummer. He beats on his girls, hits them with belts, his fists. Makes them stand on corners for hours. One girl they said got shot in her head for him. She has tubes in her stomach and can’t work. One girl is 17. They work the track, the strip clubs and the hotels. One room to sleep, one room to work out of.

  Since she has been back I have learned so much about the prostitution game that I never really knew existed.

  The craziest thing is she’s not ashamed to talk about it. She said what her and these girls had in common was they all had no fathers. One man took eight girls and promised them a bunch of bullshit and (gave them) a beating full of threats that scared them into staying.

  Soon, Katina was able to focus on business again. She agreed to do a bachelor party at the barber shop for a friend of Tink's.

  The bachelor was cool but Tink went down on a dancer. It shocked me that he did that in front of me because we are intimate and more than friends. The guy (sponsor—who was the best man) kept grabbing me saying stay in here with us. I asked Lola (stripper I knew) to give him a private lap dance, Why he wanted me in there I know, but at the same time I’ll never know. Now all of a sudden he won’t stop texting me. He texts every morning. I think it’s cute but crazy. I got the money, so that’s all that mattered.

  The money kept flowing. On November 1 Katina got a call from a white girl.

  She wanted to surprise her fiancé with ‘me.’ How nice. I made $350. When I say he was shocked, it was the real kind.

  He pulled out damn near $5,000 in rubber bands. She was cool and tasted good, I might add.

  As 2013 wound down Katina summarized where things stood in her business.

  Unfortunately, some of her personnel were out of commission.

  Almost the end of the year. Most of the chicks that danced in my shows, okay, now some of them are pregnant. That is crazy. They screamed about how gay they were, ‘Oh, my God, he just touched my no no.’ Now some of them are pregnant?! They told me they were gay!

  But all in all, Katina celebrated that she'd made "so much money" escorting in 2013. She'd met many strange people asking for strange things. Threesomes. Requests to urinate in her mouth. All kinds of clients, too—businessmen, thugs and meth dealers. She told herself she was ready to find permanent work with benefits.

  Despite lofty intentions, Katina decided to energize her escort business. She wanted to do a show in which the dancers would be Beyoncé look-alikes. She wanted to do a documentary about prostitutes, escorts, call girls and madams.

  She had an idea for hair and makeup products that glowed.

  She thought about an obstacle course people might find challenging.

  She had someone draw a design of an "IND" bracelet to keep girls safe (I'm N Danger).

  And the big news: Rod-Ni was pregnant.

  I’m happy but at the same time I’m sad. She’s a really good girl and maybe this is what God wanted her for. She’s gonna be a really good mommy…..2 grandkids already. OH MY GOD!!

  Chapter Eight

  "Rick really needs this kid so make it happen."

  -Katina Powell quoting Andre McGee

  Out of the blue, on March 3, 2014, Katina exchanged text messages with McGee.

  In fact, McGee was about to leave. On April 21 it was announced that he was taking an assistant coach’s position at the University of Missouri/Kansas City, where he would work under Kareem Richardson, a former assistant coach at Louisville.

  Chane Behanan also was leaving the city of Louisville. A week earlier, Behanan and Powell had a lengthy exchange of text messages.

  He was not picked in the NBA draft that year, but was selected for the league’s development draft.

  Oddly, she missed the announcement about McGee's change

  of jobs, busy with escort activities.

  Bachelor party for some big guy who was getting married.

  I let Lindsay, Lola and J.J. dance. Rod-Ni handled the business part and I got paid ($400). Another guy that was there called and asked me to do a bachelor party in June.

  And another:

  Did a bachelor party for another friend of Tink’s ($300). I took Rod-Ni, Lindsay, J.J. and T-Mama. The bachelor gave away $50 to the coldest female (the best). It was a big chick, she was good to be a big girl, and I was like a kid in a candy shop running upstairs to tell the girls everything she did. She could do a lot of tricks with a peeled banana in her mouth with whipped cream dripping. She had a lot of props like a dominatrix whip.

  On July 22, 2014, Katina heard a voice from the past.

  I received a phone call from Andre McGee. He said he was in Kansas coaching. I was shocked to hear from him. He asked if myself and another girl would do him a favor. So I did! $500 total. He said that they really needed this kid Antonio Blakeney, he’s supposed to be the top pick in the world.

  It was him and his (guardian). Before we hung up he said, ‘Rick really wants this kid, so make it happen.’ Of course Andre always made it more dramatic than it was, but this time he sounded as though he needed me to put the special sauce on this kid and his (guardian).

  At the time, Louisville was in a “battle” with arch-rival Kentucky to sign the player, sensational shooting guard Antonio Blakeney of Sarasota, Florida. Blakeney, who had visited Louisville earlier, returned for exhibition games July 23-26 at the Kentucky Exposition Center for the American Athletic Union Super Showcase, part of a program to allow student athletes to maximize their national exposure.

  Katina said,

  At about 7 o’clock I went to the basketball dorm and a light-skinned guy came out. He was sexy as hell and I had never seen this guy before. I didn’t see him as a player, I saw him as another one of the team's flunkies. He gave me $200 in twenties, shook my hand, and walked away, almost as if he didn’t want me to get a good look at him. I got the money and left.

  Meanwhile, she called Shay.

  I asked her was she down to make some money, and she said yes. I picked up Shay and we rode out to a hotel on Whipps Mill Road, about 25 minutes from where we lived. (Embassy Suites). We went up to Room 328 and knocked on the door and Antonio opened the door. He looked like he was growing dreadlocks, something like a small afro just starting. He was in the front room and in the back room was his (guardian) standing in the doorway. He had on white shorts and a white shirt. He was a little taller than me and on the chubby side.

  We introduced ourselves and Antonio directed me to the back bedroom while he and Shay stayed in the living room.

  Katina's journal identified the man as his uncle but Antonio told Shay the man was his father.

  He sat on the bed and I asked him if he was enjoying his time here in Louisville. He said yes with a slight smile. I asked him what did he like about Louisville. He said the Yum Center, the players, and the ‘hospitality’ that the coaches have shown him. I asked him if Antonio was coming to Louisville. He smiled and said it depends. I knew then it was time to get started.

  Afterward, as Katina was getting dressed, she asked again if Antonio would be signing on the dotted line. He responded that with all they'd received, how could he say no? She noticed that Shay and Antonio were sitting on the couch and talking after they had sex. Katina asked Antonio if he would be signing to Louisville. He said yes.

  I noticed when we were leaving that there was a whole basketball team in the lobby. They looked as though they might have been a high school team but these guys were way too tall. We looked at one another, laughed, and left the hotel.

  What she didn’t know was that Antonio slid his number to Shay to call him at a later date, and she did (the next day), this time serving (both Antonio and a coach) and not getting paid. "It’s called taking one for the team," she said.

  A few hours later Andre called and asked how it went. She told him they were done and that he'd be signing. McGee was shocked at how fast Katina and Shay got in and out, but by then they'd had plenty of practice, of course.

  He asked me for my government name and address and
told me that in the morning I could go to any Walmart and pick up the rest of my money ($300). When I got to the Walmart the lady at the counter looked at the money-gram and said, Hey, I know this name, Andre McGee. Don’t he play for U of L?

  The reference Katina made to Whipps Mill Road is to one of the outer drives around the Embassy Suites. As phone records show,

  McGee had sent her the actual address, 9940 Corporate Campus Drive.

  Phone records show that on July 22, 2014, McGee called and/or texted Katina nine times and she called/texted him eight times. The calls between 6:08 p.m. and 11:11 p.m., totaled about 35 minutes. All of McGee's calls were from a California number. It is not known what he was doing there, although he is originally from the area.

  There were two exchanges the following day. It is not known who asked McGee to arrange the liaison, or who bankrolled it. The fact that someone connected in some way at the University of Louisville knew that McGee—now at a smaller school more than 500 miles away—could arrange for prostitutes makes it clear this person or persons knew about McGee’s activities while he still was on the Louisville payroll.