LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – A former high-ranking official at the University of Louisville has been paid $750,000 by the school to settle a lawsuit claiming she was demoted after she angered then-U of L President Neeli Bendapudi by telling police about an extortion attempt by then-assistant basketball coach Dino Gaudio.
Amy Shoemaker, U of L’s former deputy general counsel and associate athletics director, filed the whistleblower lawsuit in July 2022 after what she deemed a demotion in December 2021.
The case was set to go to trial in August but both sides said they had agreed to a settlement. UofL president Kim Schatzel signed the settlement agreement on October 2.
As part of the settlement, UofL denies the validity of Shoemaker’s claims and both sides agreed to keep it confidential. WDRB News obtained the settlement through the open records law.
Former Louisville assistant coach Dino Gaudio leaves the federal courthouse in Louisville after being sentenced for extortion.
In the lawsuit, Shoemaker alleges Bendapudi and the school retaliated against her when she went to police to report what she believed to be illegal actions by Gaudio, who later pled guilty to a federal charge and was sentenced to a year of probation in connection with the extortion attempt.
Shoemaker was a longtime staff attorney for U of L, having gone to work as assistant general counsel in 2006 and rising to the role of deputy general counsel and associate athletics director in 2018.
Her Louisville attorney, Hans Poppe, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Shoemaker's suit shed more behind-the-scenes light on the series of events that transpired after then-men’s basketball coach Chris Mack decided not to renew the contracts of Gaudio and assistant Luke Murray when the Cards failed to make the NCAA Tournament in 2021.
According to Shoemaker’s complaint, Mack notified Josh Heird, who was then associate athletics director but since has been named to the top job in athletics, of his plans not to renew Gaudio or Murray. Heird went to Shoemaker to seek advice on that process, and she told him that Mack needed to have another university employee present for the conversations, preferably the athletic department’s human resources director.
Instead, Mack held the meeting with Gaudio on March 17, 2021, on his own. It became contentious and Gaudio threatened to expose what he claimed were NCAA violations within the program if he wasn’t paid the equivalent of 18 months’ salary. Mack secretly recorded the conversation, and a subsequent voice mail from Gaudio saying he would be back the next day to close the deal in writing.
Mack then reported what had happened to Heird and Shoemaker, who later that evening met with then athletics director Vince Tyra and compliance director John Carns, and everyone hears the recordings.
Believing a crime had been committed and, according to the suit, acting in accordance with what she felt were her duties as an attorney and associate athletics director, Shoemaker reported Gaudio’s actions to campus police and shared copies of the recordings Mack had shared with her.
The next morning, March 18, in a video conference with Bendapudi and her chief of staff, Shoemaker shared what had transpired. In the suit, she says, “Bendapudi expresses frustration and anger” that the police had been contacted, and expressed worry about negative publicity.
Later that day, the FBI came to campus to interview Mack. During that interview, Mack admitted to providing an incomplete recording to his bosses and the FBI, saying he had deleted a longer section out of fear “that the longer recording would reflect poorly on him.” He did assist the FBI in recovering the longer version.
A day after that, Shoemaker’s suit says that Bendapudi’s chief of staff, Michael Wade Smith, called to tell her that she should not have reported Gaudio’s extortion attempt, but should have left that decision up to the president. She says Smith told her that Bendapudi was, “very upset” and added that all such decisions should be left to her, and used the phrase, “Bendapudi is the university.” Shoemaker said she apologized but added that she believed her decisions were appropriate under the circumstances. She said she felt Gaudio to be unstable and worried about his frame of mind if he was coming back to campus.
In a video conference on April 8 with Tyra and others participating, Shoemaker said that Bendapudi berated her, saying, “Amy! You cannot trust the FBI!” She says Bendapudi went on to say the FBI is “tricky.”
In her complaint, Shoemaker shares a text message from Bendapudi later that day in which the president apologized and acknowledged, “I am worried.”
But after that, Shoemaker said she felt a shift in her status. She was shut out of legal calls to discuss the school’s approach to NCAA violations. She was shut out of U of L athletics association executive sessions dealing with matters she had been overseeing. Her access to the general counsel group counsel was revoked, and she and Tyra were both locked out of board discussions on disciplining Mack over the handling of Gaudio and Murray.
And she was pushed out of the school’s accreditation and reaffirmation process with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, a process she had helped with in prior years.
Finally, her communications with Bendapudi and her office were cut off, even as she continued to hear from others about the president’s anger and frustration over her decision to go to police.
On Nov. 29, 2021, Shoemaker says she met with university counsel Angela Curry to discuss her future with the school. Curry said her responsibilities and salary were being reduced.
Shortly after that, Tyra was out as athletics director, and Bendapudi left to take the job as president at Penn State. Shoemaker said she filed an internal whistleblower retaliation complaint through university channels, but believes it was not investigated.
Her complaint says that as the result of doing her duties, she was “forced out of her employment with U of L on behalf of ULAA, lost two terms of sabbatical pay, incurred relocation costs and suffered mental and emotional anguish by relocating away from her family and the U of L community where she had spent the better part of her life and career.”
This story may be updated.
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