People castigating the woman who supplied sex workers to Louisville basketball groups should be pointing their fingers elsewhere

We all write the word “alleged” when it comes to “Louisville Madam” Katina Powell’s assertion that she supplied strippers and sex workers to lure recruits for the local big-time basketball program. But the allegations are easy to believe, for one critical reason: If they weren’t valid, the Louisville War Room would be working overtime to discredit Katina Powell, destroy her character, and wreck her life. Instead, they are in a retrenchment mode, looking for scapegoats, and trying to save the job of superstar head coach Rick Pitino, as well as the future of the most lucrative hoops program in the NCAA.

Pitino’s friends in high places are saying that there is “no way” he could have known. They want us to believe that a man described as the Godfather of Louisville was kept in the dark about years of sex parties with players, coaches, and campus security all allegedly present.

The trashing of Katina Powell has been outsourced to sports-radio talkers, the local press, and social media. It is not surprising that she has become a target. Powell is not only threatening the golden goose; she also speaks openly about having no regrets for having been a sex worker or over having her young daughters—both over 18, Powell insists—do sex work for her at the very parties in question. When asked if she had any discomfort over her children going into “the life,” she merely said, “They wanted to make money. They wanted to have fun. And they wanted to do it with me…. They always wanted be around their mom. And if it wasn’t with me, they would have done it for someone else.”

When asked why she was coming forward now and writing a book, she said she was done with sex work and was doing it “for the money.”

People have been utterly appalled by her words, and yet, as is often the case when you actually listen to sex workers, she may be the most honest person in the room.

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