O’Boyle’s lawyer questions report, press release

The attorney for suspended Head Football Coach Bill O’Boyle questioned the findings of an independent auditor’s report that asserted the embattled coach misused $22,000 in football fundraising proceeds.

A Nov. 18 press release issued by the Nebraska State College System implied that suspended football coach O’Boyle misused $22,000 held in unauthorized off-campus accounts. The release cites the findings of a 79-page report published by independent auditors BKD of Denver.

The NSCS press release states that “The [BKD] report states that payments to ‘cash’ totaling approximately $22,000 do not have supporting documentation; therefore, it is not possible to determine whether the funds were used for their purported purpose or if the funds were used to benefit football program staff personally.”

O’Boyle’s attorney Randy D. Cullers took exception to the System Office’s insinuation that the undocumented “payments to ‘cash’” referred to in the NSCS press release personally benefited football program staff members.

In a letter to The Eagle delivered Monday, Cullers wrote, “While we recognize that a lack of documentation for expenditures exists, it is important to note that BKD did not identify instances in which cash advances from any of the accounts appeared to have been deposited in the O’Boyle’s [sic] personal accounts.”

The NSCS hired BKD to conduct the audit adhering to a 15-point agreement titled, “Scope for forensic accounting procedures.” The original agreement contained seven points, and an amended agreement added an additional eight points.

In BKD’s original scope of investigation, item seven states, “If possible, determine who benefited from disbursement of the funds from the aforementioned accounts, with proof through documentation.”

In its eight amended points, BDK outlined procedures relating specifically to O’Boyle.

Item six states, “When available, we will compare the personal credit card statements for William O’Boyle to the cash transactions from the ‘Special’ and ‘Concessions’ bank accounts to help support the amount and nature of the cash payments.”

Item seven states, “Legal counsel for the System (Stinson Morrison Hecker, LLP) will request copies of, or access to, personal bank account records for William O’Boyle and we will compare the deposit activity included in those records against the cash payment activity in the Special, Concessions and other bank accounts associated with the CSC football program.”

In a telephone interview Monday, NSCS Chancellor Stan Carpenter said, “I think BKD did what we asked them to do.”

In his Monday letter, Cullers wrote that the BKD report contains “inconsistencies and inaccuracies.”

He stated that “Significant information was made available to BKD to corroborate the explanations provided by Coach O’Boyle. Unfortunately, those explanations provided are not reflected in the audit report.”

Cullers also stated that despite voluntary collaboration with the auditors, including releasing “substantial” personal bank account records, credit card statements, income tax returns, and “other pertinent documents,” the BKD report omitted “significant” information that corroborated O’Boyle’s explanations of the cash transactions.