SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A New Jersey man who posed as a former New England Patriots participant with the intention to purchase and promote Tremendous Bowl rings that he claimed had been items to Tom Brady’s household was sentenced Monday to 3 years in federal jail.
Scott V. Spina Jr., 25, of Roseland was sentenced by a choose in Southern California’s Orange County.
In 2017, Spina purchased a Patriots’ 2016 Tremendous Bowl championship ring from a Patriots participant who then left the group. Prosecutors mentioned Spina paid the participant — recognized solely as TJ — with at the very least one unhealthy test and bought the ring for $63,000 to an Orange County dealer of championship rings.
“When Spina obtained the participant ring, he additionally obtained the knowledge that allowed the previous participant to buy Tremendous Bowl rings for household and associates which are barely smaller than the participant rings,” the US legal professional’s workplace mentioned in a press release.
Spina then referred to as the corporate that made the rings, claimed to be the previous participant and ordered three family-and-friend rings with “Brady” engraved on them, claiming they had been items for Brady’s child, prosecutors mentioned.
“The rings had been at no time licensed by Tom Brady,” in line with the legal grievance.
Spina agreed to promote the rings for $81,500 to the identical Orange County dealer who purchased the unique ring, contending that Brady had given them to his nephews. The dealer later tried to withdraw from the deal as a result of he “began to imagine that Brady didn’t have nephews,” in line with the US legal professional’s workplace.
In November 2017, the identical day that the client tried to again out, Spina bought the rings to an public sale home for $100,000 — way more than he’d paid for them, prosecutors mentioned.
At a February 2018 public sale, one in all them bought for greater than $337,000, authorities mentioned.
Spina pleaded responsible on Feb. 1. to at least one depend of mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud and one depend of aggravated identification theft for posing as the previous Patriots participant, falsely telling the dealer that the household rings had been ordered by Brady and defrauding him in reference to three wire transfers for the deposit.
At his sentencing, the choose additionally ordered Spina to pay $63,000 in restitution to the previous Patriots participant who bought him the real Tremendous Bowl ring.