The Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore Iowa NCAA scandal investigation started in part because of a twitter photo concerning a Marcus Paige and Josh Oglesby visit.

The University of Iowa has since announced that Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore did violate NCAA recruiting rules. The bizarre story started on September 15 when the NCAA sent Iowa a letter telling them that they might be in violation of recruiting rules. By October 1, Iowa confirmed the meetings. Now the school is confirming the violations.

The date was dubbed football weekend in Iowa City. Marcus Paige and Josh Oglesby met with Kutcher and Moore. Paige had his picture taken with Kutcher (dressed in Iowa gear) and tweeted it from his Twitter profile account @arcuspaige15. Twitter account @HawkeyeInsider thereafter picked up the photo.

The two recruits confirmed the meetings. Oglesby told IlliniHQ.com “[Kutcher] was cool. You know, some of those actors or actresses might just say, ‘Hey, how you doing?’ But he just sat there and talked your ears off.”  Similarly, Paige told Rivals “Seeing a Hollywood star that you’ve seen in all those movies was really cool.”

The Des Moines Register reports “NCAA rules prohibit recruits from meeting with outside individuals considered to be representatives of the university’s athletic interests.”  Were Kutcher and Moore “representatives of the university’s athletic interests”? Yes, says the Register and the University. Both Kutcher and Moore were in town to raise funds for the school.

Jeff Eisenberg reports today that celebrities meeting recruits, while violations, happen routinely, “but the truth is that these potential violations are not that big of a deal” with the “vast majority of these infractions either go unreported or become secondary violations”.

In fact, Iowa is telling the NCAA that the violations should be secondary violations because, according to the school, they were inadvertent. In an October 1 letter to the NCAA, Iowa Fred Mim associate athletic director writes “The university is remorseful that these violations occurred. We believe they were the result of sloppy management by our basketball staff.”