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Coddling a culture of criminality at ole USC?

By Nestor

While the NCAA and the Pac-10 should be setting up wide investigations into the alleged serious transgressions of USC's Heisman's running back's immediate family (opening all kinds of questions about a chronic culture of cheating), thanks to latest allegations of yet another thuggish and disgusting Trojan scandal we are going to bring up the issue of a pervasive culture of criminality at the USC football program. We have already seen how Trojans have no problem comparing a silly football kicker's unfortunate, stupid mistake of DUI with one of their most ferocious linebacker's punching the brains out of another college student at a campus Halloween party, and then not having to suffer any punishment from Pom Pom's program. Trojans also seemed to have no problems bringing up a dying cancer stricken individual to make excuses for the inaction of Pom Pom Carroll of seeking any accountability from his freshmen LBer's thuggery on campus. And predictably the peons from Heritage Hall are already out in full force pathetically vouching for Sanchez?s character. This current allegation of sexual assault against the SC quarterback is just the latest in a series of troubling news coming out from USC in which their football players continuously get themselves embroiled in allegations of acting like bunch of gangbanging thuggish goons on that campus in South Central LA, yet somehow escape the wrath of our criminal justice system. Is there something going on around South Central Los Angeles?

Well looks like we are not the only one concerned with this rampant culture of criminality at USC. Last year Lance at Martini Republic, an excellent LA centric blog made these observations on Trojan football thuggery in South Central while discussing the incident involving their thuggish LB punching a student?s brains out at a campus Halloween party. Those guys zeroed in on the legal players who are always involved when the Trojans are being bailed out from allegations of criminal acts:

Pete Carroll's football program has been bordering on the dynastic for a few years now, winning consecutive championships and on the verge of a third. It's also been bordering on the criminal, as at least half a dozen USC football players have been arrested for crimes including weapons possession, suspicion of felony assault, possession of Ecstasy, and misdemeanor battery. Most recently, linebacker Rey Malauga was arrested for allegedly punching a man in the face at a party Halloween night.

Four of the players, Malauga, Manuel Wright, Eric Wright (no relation) and Hershel Dennis were represented by Trutanich, who received his bachelor's from USC in `73 and his MBA from SC in `78. (His law degree is from Northrop College of Law.)

We have written about Trutanich before. He is the Southern California lawyer, who always magically shows up to the rescue of (alleged) Trojan thugs whenever they get themselves (again magically) on the LAPD police blotter. This Trutanich character, who is basically Pom Pom Carroll's right hand, has a lot of interesting connections and one of them stretches into the offices of the Los Angeles District Attorneys office in the form of Rocky Delgadillo:
To say that Trutanich has juice with Delgadillo's office is an understatement. In four months as special assistant city attorney, from July 1 to November 1, by his own account, he handled sensitive negotiations with the Coliseum Commission and developed a multimillion-dollar proposal for a Bureau of Investigation. He also allegedly blurred the lines in his "monitoring" of a lawsuit filed against Delgadillo and former chief deputy Terree Bowers, despite the city's conflict of interest that led to the hiring of Baker & Hostetler. The suit has so many Los Angeles judges as witnesses that it was moved to Orange County.
Interesting ... isn't it? More on this special relationship between Carmen and Rocky:
In June, Trutanich took a leave of absence from his lucrative practice to serve Delgadillo, who also is running for California attorney general. But first, Trutanich wrapped up a criminal case he was defending, which was prosecuted by the City Attorney's Office.

Within less than a week, he went from criminal defense attorney to Delgadillo campaign contributor to special assistant to Delgadillo.

On June 26, the Daily Breeze reported that Trutanich's client, Joseph Zacher, pleaded no contest to illegal storage of hazardous waste, after initially facing five counts of illegal disposal, which threatened jail time and a fine of $500,000. Zacher avoided both, agreeing to clean up the site and report to a Los Angeles judge every 90 days.

Four days later, on June 30, according to the secretary of state, Trutanich gave $5,600 to Delgadillo's campaign for attorney general. (Trutanich also gave $1,000 to Delgadillo's re-election campaign in 2004, according to the Ethics Commission.)

The next day, on July 1, he became a special assistant city attorney, reporting to Delgadillo. While he won't disclose his salary, he says he made "a lot less than in private practice," while working on the deal to bring NFL football back to Los Angeles and a proposal for an investigative unit that would beef up the office's prosecution capacity.

Trutanich tendered his resignation on September 6 and returned to private practice on November 1, he said this week. The City Attorney's Office says his resignation was effective September 30. Either way it was convenient for Maualuga, who was arrested on Halloween.
Everything is convenient for Pom Pom. It was up to the Delgadillo's office to decide whether or not to file charges against Malauga. And we all know what happened And this time I am not going hold my breath over Sanchez getting in any legal trouble either. Everyone should watch closely though who retains as a defense attorney and how this case plays out.

Again we don't know the whole story here. But to say that what we are reading here is troubling is an understatement. Of course now we can come out and act like a ?Pundit? of the college blogosphere and claim that we have inside connections to the Southern California?s high school and college football coaching communities, and the local media that we know the real story and that yes there is absolute corruption resulting in a disgusting odor of criminality oozing out of Pom Pom?s football program. But we will not do that.

What we can do is demand some investigative journalism into these troubling stories that seem to be popping up all the time. We have not seen a single investigative piece of journalism on what the hell is going on at Peter Carroll's football program in the name of college football from any of the traditional media outlets because they are too busy sucking those Trojan pop sickles worshipping them as the greatest program ever. Again those of us ? who have been following the Southern California sports scene we have been hearing the murmurs concerning this program. We hear the stories percolating up various message boards. But that is about it. But when a story like this one emerges raising concerns about the connections between USC?s favorite lawyers constantly rescuing its football stars from accusations of thuggery and the LA city attorney ? you have to wonder what is going on. I wonder if any of those investigative journalists from CNNSI, DSPN, CBS or HBOSports will ever bother to look into these storylines.

Well ? not sure if I am going to hold my breath for these traditional media outlets to look into the behind the scene story on steady stream of stories of (alleged) thuggery coming from the Trojan football program pointing towards a culture of criminality. But sooner or later Karma is going to catch up with these guys and they will get exposed just like Denis Erickson's dirty program in Miami got busted back in mid 90s. You know the old saying ? where there is smoke there is fire.

Again keep in mind the Trojans apologists can pipe up all they want and point towards all the disturbing stories implicating trouble athletes from Toledo?s football program. Well sure UCLA football program was having discipline issues during the late 90s and early 00s. That led to the firing of Bob Toledo. Westwood sent a clear signal that it was not going to put up with a lawless football program. But right now at least according to the story pointed by the bloggers in Martini Republic, apparently in South Central if things are taken care of by those lawyer folks, then it is fair game. Unlike UCLA there seems to be no accountability at USC? No attempt of institutional control over their culture of criminality. Someone has to take a closer look at all this mess. Right? Someone? Anyone?

GO BRUINS.

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