How an FBI agent’s wild Vegas weekend stained an investigation into NCAA basketball corruption

The FBI agents arrived in Las Vegas with $135,000 and a plan.

They took over a sprawling penthouse at the Cosmopolitan, filled the in-room safe with government cash and stocked the wet bar with alcohol. Hidden cameras — including one installed near a crystal-encrusted wall in the living room — recorded visitors.

In the heart of a city known for heists and hangovers, the four agents were running an undercover operation as part of their probe into college basketball corruption that investigators code-named Ballerz.

One of the agents was posing as a deep-pocketed businessman wanting to bribe coaches to persuade their players to retain a particular sports management company when they turned professional. He distributed more than $40,000 in cash to a procession of coaches invited to the penthouse. The sting concluded at a poolside cabana on a blistering afternoon in July 2017 with a final envelope of cash passed to one last coach.

After that transaction, the lead case agent, Scott Carpenter, joined the undercover operative and the two other agents in eating and drinking their way through the $1,500 food and beverage minimum to rent the cabana.

Carpenter had consumed nearly a fifth of vodka and at least six beers by the time he returned to the penthouse to shower and change clothes before a night out.

He grabbed $10,000 in undercover cash from the penthouse safe, then headed to a high-limit lounge at the casino next door. What happened next would ultimately stain the investigation like a cocktail spilled on a white tablecloth.

The investigation was hailed as a watershed moment in men’s college basketball. But in an extensive reassessment, the Los Angeles Times examined thousands of pages of court testimony, intercepted phone calls, text messages, emails and performance reviews. The records provide a detailed look inside the high-profile investigation, led by a veteran FBI agent whose conduct on a vodka-soaked day in Las Vegas landed him on the wrong side of the law.

Ballerz was the top priority for the New York FBI’s public corruption squad for almost a year, according to Carpenter’s performance review in 2017, and included two undercover agents, operations in at least eight states, dozens of grand jury subpoenas and thousands of wiretapped phone calls.

The performance review and other court records offer new details about the lead case agent’s role and provide the most comprehensive account to date of the FBI’s handling of an investigation that, for all its hype, focused on lesser-known coaches and middlemen, most of them Black.

The weight of the federal government crashed down on college basketball at a livestreamed news conference in Manhattan when authorities unveiled the investigation in September 2017. The assistant director in charge of the New York FBI office warned potential cheaters that “we have your playbook.”

FBI agents, some with weapons drawn, had arrested 10 men, including assistant coaches from the University of Southern California, Arizona, Auburn and Oklahoma State. Prosecutors alleged that the coaches took bribes and, in a related scheme, that Adidas representatives funneled money to lure players to colleges the company sponsored.

Major universities and shoe companies were deluged with subpoenas. Coaches retained attorneys, even if they hadn’t been charged, and rumors swirled about the government’s next target in its crusade to clean up the sport.

Carpenter’s performance review said the “takedown has already had a major national impact and … is likely to continue to have major impact.” Prosecutors characterized the effort in a court filing as “arguably the biggest and most significant