Coach Rick Pitino took a page out Rudy Giuliani's playbook while addressing revelations that he had an affair and paid for the abortion of a woman who then tried to extort him for millions. After apologizing to family, friends, fans and colleagues in his statement, Pitino then took a sharp turn while thanking the Lousiville community which he arrived into after being hired in 2001. He said, "When 9/11 hit, you needed a community to get you over it. In New York City, it was easy because everybody knew the devastation of that and they got each other over it. In Louisville, the impact wasn't felt like New York City, but I needed this community to help me get over it." You can't fault the logic of using 9/11 if you wanna knock abortion out of the headlines—especially when new quotes from Karen Cunagin Sypher, the woman who accuses the coach of rape, now include this one: "He made me murder my child. It should sicken the public and it devastated my children...I wanted to have the baby but Rick said if I did, my children would all be in concrete." Sypher has released a phone message Pitino left her, but in it he only encourages Sypher to make her own decision about the pregnancy. more ›

Former Knicks coach and current head coach of Big East powerhouse Louisville Rick Pitino is mired in an extortion scandal where it has come out that he had an affair inside a Kentucky restaurant and then paid for the woman to have an abortion. Karen Cunagin Sypher was indicted back in April of attempting to extort Pitino for $10 million. She had since responded to the charges with her own claims that the coach had raped her inside a restaurant and at a second location in 2003. Now the Louisville Courier-Journal obtained police interviews where Pitino admits to having sex with her at the restaurant after its employees had left; an assistant coach on-hand also told police that he heard "only the sounds of two people that seemed to be enjoying themselves during a sexual encounter." The Long Island native Pitino, a married father of five and Catholic who has a priest travel around with his team, then admitted to paying $3,000 for Sypher to have an abortion because she did not have health insurance, an anecdote unlikely to be brought up by the president in his current town hall meetings. Sypher pleaded not guilty to the extortion charges and prepares to go for trial. Sources say Pitino has no plans to take a leave of absence from Louisville. more ›