Alleged former Louisville escort reportedly was rebuffed by NCAA

Updated Oct 5, 2015 at 9:17p ET


The escort who accused the Louisville Cardinals basketball team of enticing recruits with prostitutes said she tried to alert the NCAA, but the organization opted not to listen to her, the Indianapolis Business Journal reported Monday.

Katina Powell told the Business Journal that she met resistance when she called the NCAA in mid-March.

"I called the NCAA in mid-March, I spoke with a young white guy, and I was telling him that I had a story about a college that was trading sex and all that stuff for money," Powell told the publication in an interview in September. "[The man who answered the phone] said he's not allowed to take a story from somebody on the outside –€” you know, 'It's hearsay, I'm not doing that, I'm not taking the story.' I asked if there was anyone else I could possibly tell my story to, and he said, 'No, there's no one else. We can't take outside stories.' He hung up. I hung up."

The Business Journal reported that the NCAA on Monday declined to comment on Powell's claim that she contacted the organization but was rebuffed but did say, "As with any potential violations, we welcome a conversation with anyone who has information."

Powell told the Business Journal that her only intent was to alert the NCAA.

"I wanted someone to tell me who I needed to talk to. It's the NCAA. They know everything that has to do with college basketball," Powell said. "I just wanted to know who could I talk to tell my story about what was going on about the college, and it didn't happen."

  • Gallery: Take a look back at some of sports' most notorious athletes-turned-felons.

Powell added that she didn't reach out to the university because she "didn't trust any of them."

Powell's book, ''Breaking Cardinal Rules: Basketball and the Escort Queen'', was recently released online, causing a firestorm that forced Louisville head coach Rick Pitino to address the accusations. The 104-page book was published by an affiliate of the Indianapolis Business Journal and is scheduled for release Oct. 12, though the publisher said it could be sooner.

''I'm just going to concentrate on basketball,'' Pitino said Saturday, adding that he has not read the book and has no plans to read it. ''When adversity hits, the strong survive. … Idleness is what makes the mind wander, so the best thing I can do is work, work, work.''

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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