Two more officials with ties to the athletics ticket office at Kansas University have resigned, Kansas Athletics Inc. announced Friday.
Brandon Simmons, assistant athletics director for sales and marketing, and Jason Jeffries, assistant director of ticket operations, are no longer employed at Kansas Athletics, where federal investigators have been looking into potentially illegal sales of regular-season and tournament basketball tickets.
KU also has hired a law firm, which in turn contracted with a forensic accounting firm, to review the operations of both the ticket office and the Williams Educational Fund, which has 4,200 members and last year generated about $15 million in revenue for the department.
Kansas Athletics distributed news of the resignations to members of the fund, whose donations can give them access to tickets to Allen Fieldhouse events.
Simmons previously served as an assistant director in the ticket office, before being promoted in December to assistant athletics director for sales and marketing.
Jeffries joined the staff at the ticket office in 2003, and had been assistant director for ticket operations since February 2004.
The resignations come as others already have resigned as the investigations continue:
• Rodney Jones — an assistant athletics director for the Williams Fund, who had been on administrative leave since early March — resigned two weeks ago.
• Ben Kirtland resigned April 5 as associate athletics director for fundraising. He was Jones’ boss.
Comments
kantubek 3 years, 1 month ago
inb4 Lew did it
sourpuss 3 years, 1 month ago
I hope these lawyer fees are coming out of KU Athletics budget and not the general budget.
4everahawk 3 years, 1 month ago
And why would you assume that these two are 'witnesses' and not collaborators? I posted before that the bricks were starting to fall when Jones was let go and a bunch of diehard faithfuls argued that this was an isolated case of one person with his hand in the till...then I posted that perhaps it was 3 down and 3 to go when Blubaugh and Kirtland left...well this should make it '5 down and 1 to go', but these 2 resignations were not on the radar. My guess now is that it is '5 down and perhaps 3 STILL to go'. Just a guess.
grammaddy 3 years, 1 month ago
Is this mess related to the Freeman thing?
toe 3 years, 1 month ago
Very predictable. I wonder if there is concern that the limbs being trimmed will not keep the disease from the roots? The only reason they are hiring attorneys is to maintain attorney client privilege to shield the results of the audit from the press and in turn, the public. Sneaky is as sneaky does.
50YearResident 3 years, 1 month ago
Freeman ratted them out for clemancy.
4everahawk 3 years, 1 month ago
Everyone ought to be glad Freeman turned them in, regardless of his reasons. This has been going on for years and would have continued. I still can't grasp the notion that this could be happening right under Lew's nose and he wasn't aware of it? Or even suspicious? Really, really bad under his watch and him bragging about 'institutional control' which obviously he didn't have.
srj 3 years, 1 month ago
For all we know these are just employees that don't want to deal with the mess Jones created. Everyone who works at Williams Fund is tainted right now, most unfairly. It just has to be a bad place to work at right now.
atemple14 3 years, 1 month ago
These employees that resigned were getting paid 6 figure salaries...I HIGHLY doubt they resigned just so they didn't "want to deal with it."
lzjayhawk 3 years, 1 month ago
Rodney Jones stole from me and so many other people and I sure hope he serves time plus is never able to find a job again!
redmoonrising 3 years, 1 month ago
sourpuss, KUAC is a separate entity from the university. Any funds spent by them on lawyers should come from their own fund.
wprop 3 years, 1 month ago
KU administrators (Hemingway) and fans were on notice early when Perkins arranged the hiring of his 26 year old son-in-law at over $100,000 per year. Where is Brandon Macneill now?
LarryNative 3 years, 1 month ago
Brandon moved with his family to work for Tulane about 4 years ago.
BruceWayne 3 years, 1 month ago
keep in mind that Freeman(how ironic is that name?) ratted for one reason and one reason only. I agree this has been going on at KU forever and would have continued. But how this can of worms was opened has never set right with me. Snitches get stitches.
tsmjcc 3 years, 1 month ago
how about compton sure he was in all this he was such good buddies with all. hope they talk to him.
LarryNative 3 years, 1 month ago
I bet Doug was involved in the Kennedy assassination too!
LogicMan 3 years, 1 month ago
How many levels under Lew were these folk? For example, any under his direct supervision?
gccs14r 3 years, 1 month ago
My guess is that Lew's employees can't even take a dump without his say-so.
merrill 3 years, 1 month ago
If Freeman is involved of course there will be other home builders in the mix. Anybody buying tickets through Freeman had to know the tickets were "hot. In a small town how could people not know?
In a small town how could "important" people not be hearing of this?
Considering Jayhawk tickets with great seats are hard to come by.
Keith 3 years, 1 month ago
Now we see the real reason KUAC shut down Joe College. They couldn't stand the thought of T shirts that read "Our AD can beat your Federal investigation."
NoDramaMama 3 years, 1 month ago
HAHAHAHAAA!!!!!
puddleglum 3 years, 1 month ago
good one, Keith
Kontum1972 3 years, 1 month ago
how long b4 the IRS and the Feds get involved...Book em Danno...!
01290129 3 years, 1 month ago
This certainly gives the new Chancellor an easy opportunity to get rid of Mr. Perkins. The excuse that Mr. Perkins' heavy-handed money-talks approach is exactly what he was hired to do, is a justified indictment of Chancellor Hemenway. Mr. Perkins is an embarrassment to the University.
As I recall, during the first ten years of the Hemenway regime, not one black junior college football transfer student graduated. Hemenway made lame excuses for the very poor graduation rate for football players. He should not be given a pass on the current situation, which is his creation.
The comment above about the IRS is well taken. It is a near certainty that those who profited in dealing illegally with KU tickets did not report the income. That's tax fraud, and you can go to jail for it.
KEITHMILES05 3 years, 1 month ago
Every week it seems there is somehing coming out about this deal. The media has no asked for and received (via official request) the email addresses of ALL William Educational Fund members. This is going to be a witch hunt like never before.
4everahawk 3 years, 1 month ago
"Witch hunt - an intensive effort to discover and expose disloyalty, subversion, dishonesty, or the like, usually based on slight, doubtful, or irrelevant evidence".
This is NOT a witch hunt Keith. Pretty sure there is little doubt about the crimes committed and plenty of evidence to prove it. Staff do not resign on their own accord in hoards just to not work around a 'mess'. More bricks are about to fall would be my guess. Let's see what this week brings....
Gootsie 3 years, 1 month ago
This whole situation makes me very sad.
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