Paula Levine

Yet that didn't stop the boosters.

They were often wealthy fans who would shower gifts and money on players.

One of those boosters at Miami was a man named Nevin Shapiro.

According to the NCAA, Shapiro provided $170,000 in impermissible benefits to Hurricanes players between 2002 and 2010.

Shapiro told us the amounts were much higher than that.

In 2011, Shapiro was convicted of securities fraud and money laundering for an alleged Ponzi scheme defrauding investors of more than $900 million.

He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Though he still disputes the facts of the case and insists that his money mostly came from real estate investments.

After trying to interview him for six years, Dan and I finally sat down with Shapiro in 2024.

after his sentence was commuted.

Shapiro told us he'd started following the Hurricanes in the late 70s, shortly after moving to Miami from Brooklyn.

But you did not attend the university, right?

Well, I wanted to get into it.

I mean, I'm assuming you wanted to, right?

You wanted to go there.

Shapiro didn't graduate college, but that didn't stop him from building a business empire that the feds say was partly based on a fraudulent investment scheme.

What made you decide to get involved with helping the program?

Like, do you remember your first donation?

And what did being a booster get Shapiro?

Shapiro said he got to run onto the field with the players before two games.