Filed under: Louisville

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A woman charged with extortion will not take the stand in her trial for allegedly demanding millions to keep quiet about sex with Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino.

It was never clear if 50-year-old Karen Cunagin Sypher would testify on her own behalf at the Louisville trial. But her lawyer ended any chance of calling her by resting the defense case Wednesday morning without calling any witnesses.

Prosecutors ended their case Tuesday after a week of sometimes lurid testimony. Pitino himself testified about the night in 2003 that he and Sypher had sex in a closed Italian restaurant.

Closing arguments in U.S. District Court in Louisville are set to begin later on Wednesday.

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Filed under: Louisville

Karen Sypher’s marriage to Rick Pitino’s equipment manager was like Jaycee Dugard’s 18-year captivity, Sypher’s divorce attorney testified Monday, according to a newspaper report of the trial.

The attorney, Dana Kolter, represented Sypher in her divorce from Tim Sypher, the Pitino aide who drove her to get an abortion at Pitino’s request, whom Karen Sypher would later marry.

“It was one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen,” Kolter testified about the marriage Monday, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal, saying that he believed Sypher had been brainwashed.

In the case Kolter referred to, Dugard was kidnapped and held for 18 years in the backyard of Phillip and Nancy Garrido, though she later developed a relationship with her captor.

Meanwhile, a former boyfriend of Sypher’s testified that she thought trying to extort University of Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino was “stupid” and she regretted doing it.

Tyree Fields of Dayton, Ohio, testified Monday at Sypher’s extortion trial that they talked on April 27, 2009, three days after she was initially charged with extortion. In that conversation, Fields said, Sypher told him she “shouldn’t have done it.”

Fields is the third person to testify to having an affair with Sypher while she was married to a longtime Pitino aide.

Sypher has pleaded not guilty to extortion, retaliating against a witness and lying to the FBI. She is accused of demanding college tuition for her children, her house to be paid off and $10 million in exchange for keeping quiet about a sexual encounter with Pitino, who is married.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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Filed under: Louisville

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A longtime aide to Rick Pitino told jurors the Louisville men’s basketball coach asked him to take a woman out of town for medical services after she said the coach got her pregnant in a one-night tryst at a restaurant.

The aide, Tim Sypher, testified Friday that Pitino did not mention taking Karen Cunagin Sypher to get an abortion. Tim Sypher, 49, said he called clinics in Indiana and Ohio before taking Karen Sypher to Cincinnati, where she terminated the pregnancy on Aug. 29, 2003.

Tim Sypher testified that he paid for the procedure from $3,000 Pitino gave for medical insurance.

Karen Cunagin Sypher is accused of trying to extort millions from Pitino. She has pleaded not guilty.

Tim and Karen Sypher, now divorced, would marry less than a year later.

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Filed under: Louisville

Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino has finished testifying in the case of a woman who demanded millions from him after a sexual tryst, saying he didn’t immediately report threatening phone calls because he didn’t want his family to find out.

Pitino said Thursday that he kept quiet to “contain” potentially damaging information.

He and the attorney for Karen Cunagin Sypher, who is charged with extortion, had multiple heated exchanges during two hours of questioning Thursday.

Pitino a day earlier acknowledged on the stand the two had sex in a restaurant booth. Sypher has alleged it was rape.

During questioning about the rape allegation, Pitino interrupted defense lawyer James Earhart saying he’s “here to give the truth.” Earhart replied: “I bet you are.”

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Filed under: Louisville

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The trial of a woman accused of trying to extort Rick Pitino began its fourth day with a heated exchange Thursday between the Louisville basketball coach and the woman’s attorney.

Attorney James Earhart was questioning Pitino about allegations that he raped Karen Cunagin Sypher when the coach interrupted, saying he was ”here to give the truth.” Earhart replied, ”I bet you are.”

Earhart also questioned Pitino about calls made to the coach’s phone about a sexual encounter he and Sypher had in 2003 inside an Italian restaurant in Louisville.

Sypher has pleaded not guilty and claims she was raped during the restaurant encounter. However, no charges were ever filed, and authorities have said her claims lacked merit.

Sypher is charged with extortion and has been accused of asking for cash, cars and a house to stay quiet about the sexual liaison.

Pitino testified for about four hours Wednesday, telling jurors that Sypher initiated the sex by whispering to him and unzipping his pants when he got up to leave an empty Italian restaurant.

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Filed under: Louisville

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino told a jury Wednesday that a woman accused of demanding millions from him had sex with him after whispering to him and unzipping his pants in an empty Italian restaurant.

Pitino testified Wednesday that he met Karen Cunagin Sypher on July 31, 2003, at the restaurant where he’d gone following a golf outing.

Pitino said he bought Sypher a drink and the two exchanged small talk after the restaurant closed.

When he got up to leave, Pitino said she whispered something, opened his pants and the two then had sex “very briefly.”

“Unfortunate things happen,” Pitino said.

Sypher is charged with extortion, asking for cash, cars and a house to stay quiet about the sexual liaison. She has pleaded not guilty, claiming Pitino sexually assaulted her. Police and prosecutors have said her assault claim lacked merit.

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