FROM OUR ARCHIVES: Story originally published May 26, 1991

Photos tie Rebels to `The Fixer'

By A.D. Hopkins
Review-Journal

      Richie "The Fixer" Perry entertained at his home three key players on UNLV's 1990 national championship basketball team.
      Photographs obtained by the Review-Journal confirm the convicted sports-event fixer associated with players near the start of the 1989-90 season.

Three UNLV basketball players in 1989 enjoy the hospitality of Richard "Richie the Fixer" Perry, who was once convicted in a basketball point-shaving scandal. From left are Moses Scurry, Perry, Anderson Hunt and David Butler. From left, Perry, Hunt, Scurry and Butler work out on Perry's "home court."

      Perry is under consideration by state gaming investigators for inclusion in Nevada's so-called Black Book, the list of people banned by law from Nevada casinos. Perry also figures in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's current inquiry into the UNLV basketball program.
      The players in the photographs are David Butler, Anderson Hunt and Moses Scurry. Hunt and Butler were starters on the 1989-90 team, and Scurry was the No. 1 substitute. One photo shows the players in a hot tub with Perry, Hunt and Scurry holding a beer. In another, they are playing basketball with Perry on his distinctive backyard basketball court, which has "Perry's Court" painted on the backboard.
      The players' association with Perry may pose grave problems for the Rebel basketball program with the NCAA.
      NCAA bylaws prohibit any involvement in gambling activities or any conduct that the association deems unethical. Violations of the bylaws could cost players their eligibility.
      Use of ineligible players could force the university to forfeit its 1990 basketball championship.
      NCAA rule 10.3 (a) states student-athletes shall not knowingly "provide information to individuals involved in organized gambling activities concerning intercollegiate athletics competition."
      In addition, NCAA rule 14.01.4.3 threatens a player's eligibility for a wide range of unethical conduct.
      Perry pleaded guilty in 1984 to conspiring to commit sports bribery in the Boston College point-shaving scandal. Perry was sentenced to a year in prison.
      The photos are believed to have been taken in the fall of 1989, months after Coach Jerry Tarkanian said he had warned Scurry and Butler to disassociate themselves from Perry. Tarkanian also said he told Perry to stay away from his players.
      He gave those warnings, said Tarkanian, after Time magazine reported that Richard Perry had given both players money over lunch at Caesars Palace. Time said Perry told Art Ross, a professional coach who was seated with Perry at lunch, "I gave them a hundred bucks, so what? Everybody does it. It keeps them out of trouble." Butler, however, denied receiving money, and Tarkanian said Scurry may have received no more than "$20 to pay the tip for lunch or something."
      The Review-Journal bought the photographs on a free-lance basis from an individual who acquired by accident several negatives depicting the backyard scene. The individual who put the negatives in the hands of the Review-Journal did not shoot the pictures.
      The negatives contained several scenes of the Rebel players frolicking with Perry in his back yard in The Lakes area. Only the four were in the photos.
      Perry, 45, was unavailable for comment, but his attorney, Oscar Goodman, tried to talk the Review-Journal out of publishing them until he and Perry could look at them.
      "It would be a terrible thing if you damage these young men and it turns out there's an explanation that is completely warranted," he said.
      Steve DuCharme, a member of Nevada's Gaming Control Board, said the photos could figure in the decision whether to ban Perry from casinos.
      "It would certainly be a consideration," DuCharme said. "If you have somebody convicted of fixing sporting events hanging around the participants in sporting events, the inference is that it could adversely affect public confidence in the gaming industry."
      Nevada's legal bookmakers do not accept bets on UNLV or other state schools. However, illegal bookmakers do.
      Dennis Finfrock, UNLV interim athletic director, reacted to news of the Perry photos by saying, "We're not at all pleased to hear of it. It definitely shows he's linked closely to our program. If this is going on we want to be able to nip it in the bud.
      "I tried to reach Coach Tarkanian, but he was out of town, so we haven't discussed it at all. I'm sure he's as concerned as I am."
      Finfrock noted that Tarkanian early this year reiterated to the team his orders to stay away from Perry.
      Tarkanian was vacationing in Southern California on Friday and Saturday and could not be reached for comment. UNLV President Robert Maxson also could not be reached for comment. Several messages to all three players were not returned.
      Richard Mark Perry spends most of the year in Las Vegas.
      He has identified himself as a "commodities broker" but is seen almost daily in casinos, usually around the sports books.
      He is, in fact, a convicted sports "fixer."
      The photographs showing Perry with UNLV players in his back yard are the first solid evidence substantiating reports that Rebel players frequently gathered at his home. Radio station KNEWS recently broadcast reports from witnesses who said they saw several members of the 1990-91 team at Perry's house. The story was repeated by national media.
      During the summer Perry returns to his native New York, where he coaches some of Manhattan's top inner-city basketball prospects. That is how he became associated with Lloyd Daniels, Butler and Scurry. Some players have said they knew him as "Sam" Perry and were unaware of his gambling convictions.
      Perry earned the nickname "The Fixer" by rigging the outcomes of sporting events in order to win bets. In 1974, Perry was convicted of federal charges related to fixing harness races at the Roosevelt and Yonkers racetracks in New York. He was sentenced to prison and paid a fine.
      That scam was detailed in the best-selling "Wise Guy," Nicholas Pileggi's biography of Henry Hill, a street soldier for the Lucchese crime family.
      Hill said, "In the Superfecta races -- which they have since banned -- a bettor had to pick the first four winners in a race in their exact order. Perry figured that by getting two or three of the drivers to pull back or get their horses boxed in, we could eliminate two or three of the eight horses from the race."
      In the normal honest race, Hill explained, it cost $5,040 to buy the 1,680 three-dollar tickets to cover every possible combination of winning horses. There was no profit in that, because picking the correct one paid about $3,000. But if several horses could not win because their jockeys wouldn't let them, all possible winning combinations could be covered for only $1,800 -- and a sure profit of $1,200. When a race was fixed, the gang would bet about $25,000 on it -- all bets guaranteed winners.
      On Friday, Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith broke the story that Nevada's Gaming Control Board is considering adding Perry to the short list of players banned by law from Nevada casinos.
      UNLV's basketball program, already on probation and banned from postseason play next season, is facing still another NCAA investigation which could result in further sanctions. The new investigation includes the recruitment of Daniels in 1986. It was Perry who first told UNLV that Daniels, considered the top high school player in New York City, wanted to attend the school; The Washington Post said he paid for an apartment for Daniels to live in when he moved to Las Vegas. And in early 1987, when Daniels was arrested while trying to buy crack cocaine, Perry paid $1,500 to bail him out. But Tarkanian permanently suspended Daniels from the team -- a move which reportedly outraged Perry.
      One allegation in the current NCAA investigation is that a booster paid a recruit's transportation and housing costs in Las Vegas. While UNLV expurgated names before making public the NCAA letter outlining these charges, sources say the player was Daniels and Perry was the booster. However, whether or not Perry can be considered a UNLV booster is in question.
      This year Perry was seen at UNLV games in complimentary seats originally given to Tarkanian.
      An attorney for the coach explained that Tarkanian donated several season tickets to the Runnin' Rebels Right To Return Committee, which raised money to fight the NCAA's ban on postseason play for UNLV. One of Perry's attorneys, David Chesnoff, said he donated $4,000 to the committee and received four tickets from committee member Danny Tarkanian, the coach's son and a former Rebel player. Then he took Perry to some of the games as his guest. Chesnoff said he did not know originally that the seats had belonged to Jerry Tarkanian, and said the coach did not directly participate in the sale.
      Boosters pointed out it is legal for anyone to attend games, but in the same breath added that it didn't look good. Danny Tarkanian said, "David Chesnoff has the right to bring whomever he wants to the games. However, I don't like it when things like this have a negative impact on the program. I feel bad and it hurts because I am part of that program."
      At this year's Final Four, Perry was photographed by a Review-Journal photographer while sitting in floor-level seats allotted to NCAA coaches. However, Joseph Vancisin, executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, which distributes the coaches' tickets, said that no seat assignment records were kept. Both Vancisin and NCAA officials said they could not identify the original owner of Perry's Final Four seat.
      None of the players in the newly discovered pictures are still at UNLV.
      Hunt, one of the most popular players on recent teams, has decided to quit school and apply for the National Basketball Association draft. He had a year of eligibility left at UNLV and said he needs only a semester to graduate.
      Hunt is a 6-foot-1 guard from Detroit. He's 22 now but was 20 at the time the photo reportedly was taken.
      He was among the more popular players on the team because of his normally friendly personality. He was majoring in social work. Entering UNLV in 1987, he didn't play until 1988 for academic reasons. He became a starter late that season and sank one of the most famous shots in UNLV history when he hit a 3-point shot with two seconds left as the Rebels upset top-ranked Arizona 68-67 in an NCAA West Regional semifinal game in Denver.
      Hunt averaged 15.9 points a game and was named the MVP of the NCAA Final Four during the Rebels championship season in 1989-90. He became the team's second-leading scorer behind Larry Johnson with a 17.2-point average this season.
      Scurry, 22, is a 6-foot-7 forward from Brooklyn. He played two seasons for the Rebels, 1988-89 and 1989-90, after leaving San Jacinto (Texas) Junior College as a second-team junior college all-American (by Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook). His main reason for choosing UNLV was that he was impressed by the Rebels' pre-game light and fireworks show.
      Upon Johnson's arrival, Scurry was moved into a "sixth man" role, meaning he was essentially the team's top reserve. Scurry, due to his enthusiastic style of play, served as a sparkplug for the team and was popular with hometown crowds at Thomas & Mack Center.
      However, he sometimes went overboard: He was suspended for one game for his role in a post-game brawl at the UNLV-Utah State game Feb. 1, 1990, at the T&M. Scurry threw several punches at Utah State Coach Kohn Smith. Later he claimed he didn't recognize Smith as a head coach because he was wearing a sweater. Many head coaches wear sportcoats.
      Scurry played for a professional team in Tokyo last season. He is staying in Las Vegas this summer and will return to Tokyo next season.
      Butler, 24, is a 6-foot-10 center from Washington, D.C. He arrived at UNLV, like Scurry, as a junior college transfer from San Jacinto and spent the 1988-89 and 1989-90 seasons here. He entered UNLV as the top-ranked junior college player in the country (by the Sporting News).
      Butler was the team's third-leading scorer in 1989-90 with a 15.8-point average and the second leading rebounder with a 7.4 average.
      After failing to make the NBA, Butler played in Italy last season. He is staying in Las Vegas this summer and likely will play somewhere in Europe next season.
     Review-Journal writer Bruce Pascoe contributed to this report.