Gov. Beshear: Don't 'jump to any conclusions' on U of L scandal

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear weighed in Tuesday on the controversy surrounding the University of Louisville basketball program, urging everyone to withhold judgment until the investigation has been complete.

“I haven’t seen the reports today,” Beshear began, “but I do understand that it’s all being investigated and it needs to be. When you get serious allegations like that, it needs to be looked into in an objective fashion, and I'm sure that's what we'll see.”

The discussion came amid five former University of Louisville players and recruits backing up some of the claims of sexual encounters Katina Powell made in her tell-all book "Breaking Cardinal Rules: Basketball and the Escort Queen," according to ESPN.

The former players and recruits tell Outside the Lines that they attended parties with strippers at Minardi Hall, the dorm for basketball players. They told ESPN that the team's former graduate assistant coach Andre McGee paid for the strippers.

Governor Beshear spoke to WDRB about the allegations, addressing the fact some of the events might have happened in the dorm of a public university.

“If these things did indeed happen, it's a real big concern about the control that the institution ought to have on that kind of situation,” Beshear said. “But we don't want to jump to any conclusions until we really know what the facts are.”

The governor wouldn’t go on to condemn the allegations or the staff involved, but was asked how the scandal would reflect on the state.

“Obviously, anytime any allegations like this come out, it doesn't do the state any good,” Beshear said. “But hopefully, people will hold their judgments until we find out exactly what did or didn't happen and then you can make the judgments after that.”