Maybe hiring Bobby Petrino was a bad idea. Maybe all those times when I said replacing Tim Beckman with Bobby Petrino would be a good idea…yeah I take that back.
Meet three-star linebacker prospect and signed member of the Louisville Cardinals recruiting class Sharieff Rhaheed-Muhammad. The native of Fort Pierce, Fla., was arrested Monday on a felony sex-related charge of “lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor” after impregnating his 14-year-old cousin.
Yes, you read that correctly.
The girl, who’s name will not likely be made public as she is a minor and protected by privacy laws, told police that Rhaheed-Muhammad didn’t force himself on her and that the sex “just happened.” This occurred in June of 2013. He tried again later and she turned him away, according to a police report. Officials determined with a greater than 99.99 percent probability via a genetic test on February 11th, that he fathered a child with her. She had an abortion in November.
The victim’s mother told police that she bought a pregnancy test and confronted her daughter in October after seeing her daughter acting strangely. The mother said her daughter began crying, saying she had had sex with Rhaheed-Muhammad. The girl said she was 11 when Rhaheed-Muhammad began touching her inappropriately.
Yes, you read that last sentence correctly.
After Rhaheed and his mother refused to provide a DNA sample, police served a search warrant at the high school in November and took a swab of his DNA, according to the report.
Bobby Petrino said in a prepared statement via the University that the school was aware of the situation. As this has been an ongoing investigation for a year, and the crimes being alleged starting occurred a few years ago, we have to ask what did Bobby Petrino know and when did he know it?
It’s hard to give Petrino the benefit of the doubt given that whole Jessica Dorrell thing at Arkansas.
Was he aware of this kid’s backstory upon offering him? Did Bobby Petrino know about this when Rhaheed chose Louisville over Arkansas, Michigan State and Missouri? This kid is the jewel of the first Bobby Petrino recruiting class at UL, so don’t you think they did their due diligence?
And what about those other coaches recruiting Rhaheed. what did they know?
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. An MBA and Fulbright scholar, he’s also an analyst for multiple news talk radio stations across the country; with regular weekly segments on ESPN, NBC, CBS and Fox Sports Radio. A former writer for NBC Chicago and the Washington Times, he’s also been featured on the History Channel. President Barack Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)