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White, the retired longtime Johnson County (Iowa) Attorney, last week had just finished going over perhaps the most controversial case of his career: the 2002 felony sexual-assault case against Iowa basketball player Pierre Pierce, a case White and many others in Iowa continue to maintain was undermined by then-Hawkeye coach Steve Alford’s repeated public declarations of Pierce’s innocence in the weeks immediately after his arrest.
But now White seemed puzzled.
“I have a question for you,” he said during a telephone interview with the Orange County Register. “Do you know if the UCLA athletic director knew about any of this?”
Alford, who was introduced as UCLA’s newest men’s basketball coach last week, made repeated proclamations of Pierce’s innocence — even after evidence in the case was available to him and university officials. White said that was a significant factor in the prosecutor’s decision to settle for a plea-bargain deal.