NEW YORK — For some three weeks Judge Lewis A. Kaplan reminded jurors in this month’s college basketball corruption case that NCAA rules were not on trial. The defendants’ counsel readily admitted in their opening remarks that their clients had broken such by paying money to top high school players. Time and time again Kaplan made clear that the case’s central question was not whether the individuals standing trial had violated these regulations, but if they had undertaken criminal actions in doing so and hiding it from the colleges these recruits planned to attend.
On Wednesday, in the middle of its third day of deliberations, the jury determined that they had.