The Ohio Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) announced today that they found no fault with dealerships that allegedly may had been granting ‘privileged’ deals to Ohio State student-athletes. Certain football members of the Ohio State Buckeye’s have recently been under heavy scrutiny regarding the use of automobiles from some central Ohio dealerships — one team member being Terelle Pryor who recently departed the program. Furthermore, the salesperson in question was Aaron Kniffin who worked at two separate dealerships from 2006 through 2010.
Mr. Kniffin worked at Jack Maxton and Auto Direct and the DMV reviewed paperwork associated with 25 different combined sales from these two dealers of cars that Kniffin sold to the athletes. The end result was nothing unusual or out of the ordinary. The DMV report reads, “The only vehicle on which Jack Maxton lost money was a car that had been in inventory for more than 150 days. In such cases, the dealership provides incentives to its sales force to sell the vehicles, even at a loss.”
Ohio State had been conducting their own review of automobiles purchased by athletes and associated family members. However, after today’s DMV report, the university has announced that they have terminated their own investigation. Ohio State has been under heavy pressure by the NCAA with players having signed memorabilia for sale which is illegal according to NCAA guidelines. The following is a portion of the DMV’s report which likely has officials at the school letting out a sigh of relief, “We found no evidence in the dealers’ business records that tickets, or sports memorabilia were included in the sales, and the dealers and their legal counsel contend that the allegations are false.”