Nevin Shapiro, the former Miami booster whose rogue involvement with the school led to a massive NCAA investigation and significant sanctions against the Hurricanes, had his sentence for masterminding a $930 million Ponzi scheme commuted by President Joe Biden.
Shapiro was among the 1,499 recipients of commutations announced by the White House on Friday. Federal records show that Shapiro, who was initially sentenced in 2011 to serve 20 years in prison and repay his jilted investors nearly $83 million, will be officially listed as released on Dec. 22.
Court records show Shapiro has been on home confinement since 2020.
The commutation of his sentence only “reduces the period of incarceration,” the Department of Justice said, adding that “it does not imply forgiveness of the underlying offense, but simply remits a portion of the punishment.”
The Shapiro saga is one of the messiest chapters in college sports history. The investigation into Miami took more than 30 months, going back to when Shapiro first contacted the NCAA to essentially boast about his involvement with coaches and athletes at Miami and try to take down people he said betrayed him when he got in legal trouble.
There was even wrongdoing by the NCAA during the probe into Miami. The NCAA’s enforcement department — which does not have subpoena power — used some information gleaned by an attorney through depositions arranged under the guise of them being part of Shapiro’s bankruptcy case. Because that information was deemed to be ill-gotten by the NCAA, it resulted in some allegations being dropped. The attorney involved was also sanctioned by the Florida Bar.
One of the investigators who worked on the NCAA’s inquiry of Miami athletics even wrote a letter on Shapiro’s behalf to a federal judge, just days before he was sentenced.
Shapiro told Yahoo Sports in 2011 that he spent “millions” on extra benefits for Miami athletes. The NCAA, in its notice of allegations that Miami received in 2013, alleged that Shapiro was responsible for providing about $170,000 in impermissible benefits to Hurricanes athletes, recruits, coaches and others between 2002 and 2010.
Miami self-imposed a number of penalties — including declining bids to a pair of bowl games and an Atlantic Coast Conference championship game — and wound up losing scholarships in football and men’s basketball because of the wrongdoing. The school was placed on three years of probation by the NCAA, ending in 2016.