LITTLE ROCK — Over the course of five days, Jessica Dorrell gave conflicting accounts to University of Arkansas officials about the purchase of a black Acura, and she was slow to disclose a $20,000 gift from then-football coach Bobby Petrino, according to documents released this week by the university.
Dorrell, then an employee in the football program, told Athletic Director Jeff Long and Compliance Director Jon Fagg about the March 28 purchase the second time she was interviewed and she waited three more days to say Petrino gave her money as a “Christmas gift.”
Her conflicting statements and the efforts by Long and Fagg to learn the truth are documented in dozens of pages of notes, obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request. The pages were compiled during an athletic department review of Petrino. Long placed Petrino on administrative leave April 5 after learning that Petrino failed to disclose Dorrell was with him when he had a motorcycle wreck in Madison County on April 1.
Long decided to fire Petrino the afternoon of April 10, saying Petrino, 51, had created a conflict of interest when he hired Dorrell as student-athlete development coordinator without disclosing they had had an extramarital relationship. The $20,000 payment for the Acura was listed among six reasons for Petrino’s dismissal in Long’s three-page termination letter.
Dorrell, who started work on March 23, resigned Tuesday and agreed to a settlement that will pay her nearly $14,000. She also signed a 13-page non-disclosure agreement barring her from discussing the matter.
Through a UA spokesman, Long and Fagg on Friday declined interview requests and did not answer a series of written questions.
The Acura purchase came up April 6 when Long and Fagg interviewed Josh Morgan, who at the time was Dorrell’s fiancé and a strength and conditioning coach with UA’s swimming program. (The status of their relationship is unknown.)
According to Fagg’s notes, Morgan said Dorrell told him the “football [program is] going to give me a bonus check.” He also hinted at Dorrell’s decision to buy a car by passing along that Dorrell said, “ Football has a car guy.”
But earlier in the day, when Dorrell was interviewed for the first time by the administrators, Fagg wrote, “No gifts prior to hiring or post.” Fagg also wrote, “Bobby did not buy her the car.”
Previously, Dorrell owned a 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo edition, according to Washington County property tax records. The approximate trade-in value for that vehicle ranged between $6,000 and $7,600, according to Kelley Blue Book, a service that monitors car values. It is not known what model Acura that Dorrell purchased, but a base model Acura TSX costs $30,010 while the top-of-the line model RL has a base price of $48,000, according to the car manufacturer.
In her second interview, apparently later on April 6, Dorrell told Long and Fagg she had been saving money for two years to upgrade her vehicle, according to notes.
She said the money for a new car came from $5,000, apparently from gifts in advance of her anticipated June 9 wedding to Morgan, a $3,000 gift from an aunt and $7,000 in personal savings and vacation pay.
On April 9, during a third interview with Long and Fagg, Dorrell said Petrino gave her $15,000, a figure more often cited in the notes rather than $20,000.
“She said BP gave her 15K at Christmas,” Fagg wrote. “She hid it under her mattress.”
However, when Petrino was interviewed by Long and Fagg on April 10, he said, according to Fagg’s notes: “$15,000 - Christmas gift - was actually $20K. Withdrew it over Christmas.”
In a subsequent and fourth interview with Dorrell by phone, Fagg wrote, she was “asked about $15K on Tuesday for down payment on car - said no - only money was $20K @ Christmas.”
Neither Petrino nor Dorrell disclosed the money to anyone at the athletic department when she applied for her job on March 9 or during a March 12 interview.
Based on Long’s notes, Dorrell was directed to visit Fayetteville Auto Park and general manager Chris Bunch for a “good deal [and] trade.”
Bunch did not return a call seeking comment about whether Dorrell visited the dealership prior to making the purchase, whether she took any test drives of cars, whether she traded in her Jeep and how she had paid for the Acura.
Morgan said in a second interview on April 9 that his fiancee told him “football gave her a ‘bonus’ ” and “said something about the money on Tuesday morning or Tuesday night,” Fagg wrote in his notes.
Morgan also confirmed the March 28 date of purchase, saying Dorrell “came home at 9 p.m. with car,” Long wrote in his notes.
Dorrell told Long and Fagg that she had brought up the topic of getting a car with Mark Robinson, director of football operations.
Near the end of his first interview on April 6, Robinson told Long and Fagg he “noticed she was driving a new car, [but] didn’t know anything about how she got it.”
Meanwhile, Sean Rochelle, director for the Razorback Foundation, also told Long and Fagg that Dorrell had approached him and “wanted a car from the [foundation],” according to Fagg’s notes.
Rochelle said he’d also bumped into Morgan at some juncture in late March, where Morgan “told him that she was getting a new car” but “never indicated either way that the car was part of the deal with football,” Fagg wrote in his notes.
The notes from their interviews indicated Long and Fagg fleshed out the details of the affair, which stretched back into the fall, and included a series of gifts.
In his April 10 meeting with both men, Petrino said the relationship with Dorrell was born out of a friendship stemming from frequent contact during Razorback Foundation events.
In her first interview, Dorrell said the relationship began “Septemberish,” according to Fagg’s notes. Meanwhile, Petrino said, according to Long’s notes, there was a four- to five week escalation that started during lunch dates.
In October, Petrino told Long and Fagg, “she said, ‘Are you going to kiss me?’”
Morgan told the administrators there had been boxes of Hot Tamales, a brand of cinnamon-flavored candies, sent to his fiancee’s office at the Razorback Foundation and an assortment of Nike athletic apparel, according to Fagg’s notes.
Dorrell shed further light on these gifts, saying she would “get [candy] once before the meetings [with Petrino] started,” Fagg wrote in his notes. Yet, she said Petrino only sent candy - four boxes - on one occasion and received other boxes during trips to his office in the Broyles Athletic Center.
According to Fagg’s notes, Petrino and Dorrell exchanged more than 326 phone calls and 7,228 text messages dating back to April 2011. Around September 2011, the frequency of contact spiked and then dropped in mid-December - a span where they sent 6,145 text messages to each other and placed 118 calls, released records show.
A review of phone records shows the scale of communications began to wane as winter break arrived in Fayetteville and the Razorbacks ramped up preparations for the Cotton Bowl against Kansas State on Jan. 7 in Dallas. From Dec. 11 until Jan. 11, the pair placed 39 calls and sent just 17 text messages to one another.
Sports, Pages 17 on 04/21/2012