A federal jury returned a responsible verdict Wednesday for a Chicago ticket dealer accused of working with two White Sox staff to fleece the group out of lots of of hundreds of {dollars} in ticket gross sales.
Prosecutors alleged that for years, Bruce Lee, 35, proprietor of Chicago-based brokerage Nice Tickets, would go former White Sox ticket gross sales sales space staffers James Costello and William O’Neil an envelope full of money, and they’d go again an envelope of tickets that, utilizing insider data, he had fraudulently procured totally free or at a heavy low cost.
Lee would then promote the tickets on the web resale discussion board StubHub whereas the White Sox acquired nothing, prosecutors stated.
“It is a case about greed,” Assistant U.S. Legal professional Matthew Schneider earlier advised the jury.
After a four-day trial, the jury on Wednesday convicted Lee of 11 counts of wire fraud. U.S. District Choose Matthew Kennelly set sentencing for Jan. 10.
Costello and O’Neil beforehand pleaded responsible and agreed to cooperate.
In the meantime, Lee’s legal professional, Nishay Sanan, stated in an e-mail he believes the jury “obtained it unsuitable” and stated that Lee will “proceed to battle” the conviction.
“They didn’t have a look at the proof that the federal government offered,” Sanan wrote. “The proof offered by the federal government was bleak at finest.”
The indictment filed final 12 months claimed Lee earned greater than $860,000 by promoting almost 35,000 tickets over 4 baseball seasons from 2016 to 2019.
In October 2018, a White Sox analyst seen the massive quantity of tickets offered by Lee on Stub Hub at under face worth, Schneider stated. Officers suspected Lee had inside assist and known as the authorities.
In 2007, Lee pleaded responsible in Prepare dinner County courtroom to a misdemeanor depend of “promoting tickets not in a field workplace” and was sentenced to a day in jail, data present.
On two different events in 2007 and 2008, he was charged with ticket-related offenses, however each circumstances have been dropped.
