Former University of Miami football players who allegedly received Cadillac Escalades, jewelry, party invites, champagne, lap dances and the services of prostitutes and other gratuities courtesy of a now-imprisoned athletic-booster-run-amok won’t have to talk about it in a bankruptcy pleading. Nor will they have to give anything back.

UM has agreed to pay $83,000 to the bankruptcy trustee in the case of Nevin Shapiro, who is serving 20 years for defrauding investors in a Ponzi scheme. In exchange, the bankruptcy trustee agreed not to try to recoup any more money from UM or the 70 living players who are alleged to have received cash, gifts or services from Shapiro, in violation of NCAA rules.

The deal eliminates the likelihood of former Hurricane players having to disclose under oath potentially incriminating information about improper gifts received from Shapiro — testimony that might have further embarrassed the university.

As for the money UM is paying, $55,610 will be shared among victims of Shapiro’s Ponzi scheme and the remaining $27,390 will go the firm Tabas Freedman, which represents bankruptcy trustee Joel Tabas.

The settlement must be approved by a bankruptcy court judge, Laurel Isicoff, Feb. 27 in downtown Miami, “but I see no reason why it wouldn’t be approved,” said Gary Freedman, who is representing Tabas.

The agreement, reached last week, came days before a Dec. 30 deadline for the bankruptcy trustee to file claims in the case involving UM, because of a two-year statute of limitations from the time the action was filed.

Neither UM nor the bankruptcy trustee announced the settlement, but both confirmed the deal to The Miami Herald on Thursday.

“The University of Miami has reached a settlement with Joel Tabas, the bankruptcy trustee representing Capital Investments USA Inc. Investors,” UM said in a statement. “The university has agreed to return $83,000 in monies received both directly and indirectly from Capital Investments owner Nevin K. Shapiro.

“This amount includes payment of $3,000 in penalties levied by the NCAA on 11 current student athletes who received improper benefits from Mr. Shapiro. The agreement was the result of a lengthy negotiation process and brings closure to the university’s obligations in the bankruptcy case.”

UM declined to comment further, but officials involved in the case pointed to two factors why the settlement makes sense for UM:

•  If a settlement had not been reached, Freedman said he was prepared to both sue and subpoena former Hurricanes players to testify about what they received from Shapiro. That would have been potentially damaging to UM, because that testimony could be used by the NCAA in its ongoing investigation of the Hurricanes athletic program.

“We also were prepared to subpoena UM to provide current addresses of the 70-odd players,” Freedman said.

“It’s smart on the university’s part to get it resolved rather than pursuing the 72 players [for] who knows how long, and dealing with the fallout,” Freedman added. “We had not sent out the letter of subpoenas yet. It’s a fair deal. It was in the best interests to settle.”

The NCAA cannot require former college athletes to speak to NCAA officials. UM officials privately have said they do not expect former players to agree to meet with the NCAA. So UM has essentially eliminated the most realistic way that ex-Hurricanes players could have implicated themselves and the university.

•  If UM had not settled, its legal fees eventually would have exceeded the settlement amount, according to a UM official and another official involved in the discussions.

Freedman said the $83,000 settlement should not be considered an admission that Shapiro’s cash and gifts to players were comparable to that amount.

“It’s not a dollar-for-dollar correlation for what was provided,” Freedman said, adding that he is uncertain of the total value of Shapiro’s gifts, and that UM never speculated what that amount might be.

But Maria Elena Perez, Shapiro’s attorney, said what Shapiro gave players exceeded $83,000. Shapiro previously told Yahoo! he gave $50,000 to former Hurricanes star Vince Wilfork during his junior year (2003) and also gave Wilfork and his fiancée a pair of Cadillac Escalades shortly after Wilfork declared for the NFL draft after that season.

He also has said he showered UM players with cash, jewelry, prostitutes, dinners, trips to nightclubs and parties at his multimillion dollar home and yacht.

“Based on what I know, the settlement is but a footnote in comparison to what Mr. Shapiro provided in the way of benefitting UM,” Perez said. “The agreement is the first step on the part of UM of making right what’s been done to impressionable players who deserve to earn a salary based on their unique ability as athletes.”

A year ago, the bankruptcy trustee compelled UM to return $130,000 that Shapiro had donated in a 10-year pledge that allowed him to put his name on a student-athlete lounge. UM officials yanked his name in 2008 when he stopped making the full donations. The $83,000 settlement is unrelated to Shapiro's donations to the university.

Freedman said because of the statute of limitations in bankruptcy cases, it was debatable whether the trustee could pursue any investor money used by Shapiro prior to November 2005. The $50,000 payment to Wilfork — alleged to have occurred in 2003 — was among the gifts potentially affected by the statute of limitations.

But as part of the agreement, if the NCAA requires UM players to return any more funds, that money would go to the bankruptcy trustee, Freedman said.

The $83,000 settlement includes money from 11 players who were on the team this past season, including $1,200 from defensive lineman Olivier Vernon, $788 from safety Ray Ray Armstrong and $140 from quarterback Jacory Harris.

Overall, the bankruptcy trustee has recovered close to $22 million on behalf of Shapiro’s victims and has already distributed about $11 million of that.

Shapiro is serving a 20-year sentence for running a $930 million Ponzi scheme in which he claimed to be operating a food wholesale business. He targeted investors in Florida, Indiana, Illinois and other states. Tabas said 66 victims of the Ponzi scheme have filed claims.