Reinke/AP
Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino is surrounded by reporters and photographers as he arrives at the federal courthouse in Louisville, Ky., to testify in the trial of Karen Cunagin Sypher.
Former Knicks coach Rick Pitino told a Kentucky jury Thursday that he didn't immediately report phone calls accusing him of raping an ex-model because he didn't want his family to find out about the 2003 tryst they had in a Louisville restaurant. The University of Louisville coach testified, under cross-examination by defense attorney James Earhart at the extortion trial of Karen Cunagin Sypher, that he hoped to "contain" the damaging information. Prosecutors say Sypher, 50, demanded millions of dollars, cars and a house from Pitino, a married father of five, to stay quiet about their 2003 sexual encounter at Porcini, an Italian restaurant in Louisville. Sypher has pleaded not guilty to extortion and says Pitino assaulted her seven years ago at the empty restaurant. Sypher filed a sexual assault report with police last year, after she was indicted on extortion charges, but authorities said the complaint is baseless. Pitino acknowledged on Wednesday that he had sex with Sypher at Porcini, but he claims the tryst was not only consensual, but was initiated by Sypher, who whispered in his ear and unzipped his pants as he got up to leave the restaurant. The two had sex "very briefly," Pitino testified. Several weeks later, Pitino testified, Sypher told him she was pregnant and she believed he was the father. Pitino said he did not believe he was the father of the child, but he agreed to give her $3,000 because she was distraught and didn't know what to do about the pregnancy. Sypher's estranged husband, Tim Sypher, testified that Pitino contacted him shortly after the one-night stand and asked him to help with "a little problem." Sypher, a longtime Pitino associate and the director of Louisville's basketball practice facility, was Pitino's equipment manager at the time. Tim Sypher testified that he drove Karen to a Cincinnati abortion clinic, where she spent about $430 of the $3,000 Pitino gave her to terminate the pregnancy. Tim Sypher told the jury that he started dating Karen Sypher soon after the abortion, and said they were married six months after they met. Tim Sypher said his wife never seemed upset when socializing with Pitino, but in 2007, she claimed the coach raped her and started making demands for money, a car and a house. "It just came out of the blue," he said. Prosecutors also showed the jury a handwritten note from Karen Sypher asking for cars, housing and money, which Tim Sypher said he delivered to Pitino.
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