LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – A former high-ranking official at the University of Louisville claims she was demoted and shut out in 2021 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, makes the allegations in a whistleblower lawsuit against the school.
Shoemaker left U of L earlier this year after what she terms a demotion in December 2021. She is now general counsel at Miami University.
Amy Shoemaker.
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.
U of L spokesman John Karman declined to comment on the litigation.
Bendapudi, now president of Penn State University, issued a statement through the school that didn't directly address the specific allegations in the lawsuit.
"My commitment to ethical conduct and treating people the right way has been unwavering throughout my career," Bendapudi said in the statement. "The teams I have built at multiple institutions reflect these bedrock values. I have and will continue to lead with integrity and have complete confidence in Dr. Michael Wade Smith who emulates these principles as well."
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, said the decision to sue her former employer was a difficult one for Shoemaker, and that they tried to resolve the situation without litigation.
"They were unwilling to do anything that would amount to an appreciation for the significance of what had occurred here,” Poppe said. “Both of her parents are University of Louisville graduates. I'm a two-time University of Louisville graduate. So it wasn't easy for either of us, but because we love the university they have to come clean on what happened here.”
Her suit filed last Friday in Jefferson Circuit Court sheds 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.
Those events are well-known by now, but Shoemaker’s account lends more detail – and there could be more on the way depending on how far the suit goes.
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 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.
Louisville attorney Hans Poppe
“Amy Shoemaker knew immediately when Chris Mack came to her with the recording that this was illegal, that what Dino Gaudio had done was illegal, that she had to report it,” Poppe said. “She, who was a direct report to Vince Tyra, had a discussion in a meeting and it was immediately decided, 'We have to tell the FBI, we have to tell the university police, especially when Dino Gaudio is threatening to come back the next day and he wants payment and we don't know what happens when that request is going to be denied.' So there were no gray spots, and ultimately it proved Amy Shoemaker was correct, and Mr. Gaudio pled guilty to federal crimes. So, she had an absolute duty to report it. She followed her obligations under the law, and as a result, she was treated very poorly.”
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. In December of last year, 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.”
She is asking for compensatory and punitive damages, including interest, a jury trial, and court costs.
“There has been far too much secrecy in both this administration and in former administrations, and we'd like to get to the bottom of it,” Poppe said. “So we encourage the university to fully and completely participate in discovery, provide all emails, text messages, internal memorandum, that outline what was going on during that Dino Gaudio affair, and what led them to remove her from her position as general counsel for following the law.”
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