Spina pleaded guilty February 1 to one count of mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud and one count of identity theft.
Santa Ana, California. – man New Jersey who pretended to be a former New England Patriots player to buy and sell rings from Energy Which, according to him, are gifts for a family Tom BradyHe was sentenced Monday to three years in federal prison.
Scott in Spina Jr.25-year-old from Roseland, a judge in Orange County in the south California.
In 2017, Spina purchased the 2016 Super Bowl championship ring from patriots player New Britain who then left the team. Prosecutors said Spina paid the player — identified only as TJ — with at least one bad check and sold the ring for $63,000 to an Orange County Championship ring dealer.
“When Spina obtained the player’s ring, he also received information allowing the former player to purchase Super Bowl rings for family and friends slightly smaller than the player’s rings,” the US Attorney’s office said in a statement.
Spina then called the company that made the rings, claimed to be the former player, and ordered three rings for family and friends with “Brady” engraved on them, claiming they were gifts for Brady’s baby, prosecutors said.
The rings have not been declared before Tom BradyAccording to the criminal complaint.
Spina agreed to sell the rings for $81,500 to the same Orange County seller who bought the original ring, claiming Brady gave it to his nephews. The seller later tried to back out of the deal because he “began to believe Brady didn’t have any nephews,” according to the US Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors said that in November 2017, the same day the buyer attempted to back off, Spina sold the rings to an auction house for $100,000, much more than she paid for them.
At an auction in February 2018, one of them sold for more than $337,000, authorities said.
Spina pleaded guilty February 1 to one count of mail fraud, three counts of telephone fraud, and one count of aggravated identity theft for impersonating the former. patriotsfalsely telling the seller that the family’s rings had been ordered by Brady, and defrauded him of three wire transfers in return for the deposit.
In sentencing, the judge also ordered Spina to pay $63,000 in damages to the former Patriots player who sold him the original ring from Energy.
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