I know Pitino is despised by many UK fans. I surely didn't like it when he took the UL job. I thought it was a bad play on his part knowing he would be coaching UK's most bitter rival. I loved beating UL with Pitino as coach. However, he rescued UK from the abyss. He made us relevant again and did so in a short time. I will always be grateful he was our coach.
I consider myself highly skeptical of those people who deny what the circumstances suggest are undeniable. However, I don't believe Pitino knew about the cheating of his assistants. I don't believe he condoned it. Nevertheless, as the head man, he has organizational responsibility to hire and supervise subordinates and make sure, to the extent he can, they conform their conduct with the rules. He was rightfully fired especially in light of the hooker scandal, which he also should have known about.
At Louisville, Pitino had significant success with lesser quality players than UK. I can't see him willing to risk tarnishing his reputation again after all he went through in the Karen Sypher debacle just to get a player. Pitino is smart enough to know that some time in the future, those persons with knowledge of any wrong doing he perpetrated would inevitably "spill their guts" in a book or for some other self serving reason. I believe Pitino was apocalyptically naive but I don't believe he agreed to pay a player to attend UL.