BREAKING, UPDATE: UA Basketball (From Court To Court To Court) - Yesterday in Federal Court: Sealed Documents Filed, Judge To Update Protective Order

The White House has nothing on the University of Arizona mens' basketball program this week in terms of head-swiveling news developments. And, while today's focus is on the basketball court and the court of public opinion, there were a couple of things happening in District Court.

A pretrial conference was held in the government's case against UA's now-former assistant coach Book Richardson and the other defendants. After discussing the status of the case with attorneys for the defendants, Judge Edgardo Ramos determined that he would draft up "language for an amended protective order" and present it to the parties. This presumably would update how confidential material from the FBI's investigation is to be shared - and not shared.

There are no written motions to revise the protective order since it was last updated in December, so it is possible that some concerns were raised verbally yesterday by either the prosecutors or a defense attorney, in light of last week's ESPN story that the FBI has wiretapped conversations between Arizona Coach Sean Miller and defendant Christian Dawkins, in which they discuss payment for now-star freshman player Deandre Ayton.

Miller strongly denied the ESPN report, though the sports network is standing by its article - which cites only one source for the gist of the wiretapped conversation.

And, to add more mystery to the court proceedings in New York, the court docket also shows that two different "SEALED DOCUMENT(s) (were) placed in vault."

Arizona's Politics will decline to even write a heavily-conditioned sentence speculating on what those documents might contain.

The Arizona Board of Regents just concluded a meeting on the subject (in executive session), and announced that they back UA's decision that Sean Miller will remain as the Wildcats' head coach.

   US v Richardson by arizonaspolitics on Scribd

If you would like to show your appreciation for Arizona's Politics reporting, please consider donating to our pool to support OTHER journalism-related nonprofits. 

 We welcome your comments about this post. Or, if you have something unrelated on your mind, please e-mail to info-at-arizonaspolitics-dot-com or call 602-799-7025. Thanks.