A New Jersey man was charged with fraudulently obtaining and selling three 2016 Super Bowl championship rings supposedly given to relatives of former New England Patriots and current Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady as gifts, including one that was auctioned for more than $337,000, according to a Department of Justice news release.
Scott V. Spina Jr., 24, of Roseland, pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court to one count of mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud, and one count of aggravated identity theft in relation to the incident in which he was able to purchase three Super Bowl rings that had the name "Brady" engraved on them and then sold them by falsely claiming Brady had given them to relatives.
Court documents showed Spina's scheme began in 2017 when he purchased a Super Bowl LI ring awarded to a Patriots player who had left the team the following offseason by using the player's identity.
Spins bilked the player by paying for the ring with at least one bad check, then sold the ring for $63,000 to a well-known broker specializing in championship rings, according to court documents.
Spina then received information that players could purchase slightly smaller rings for their family and friends.
"Spina then called the Ring Company, fraudulently identified himself as [the former player], and started ordering three family and friend Super Bowl LI rings with the name ‘Brady’ engraved on each one, which he falsely represented were gifts for the baby of quarterback Tom Brady,” according to the criminal information filed on Monday (December 20) viaJustice.gov. “The rings were at no time authorized by Tom Brady. Defendant Spina intended to obtain the three rings by fraud and to sell them at a substantial profit."
Spina then reached an agreement with an Orange County broker to sell him the three family rings that he claimed Brady had previously given to his nephews.
The man agreed to purchase the three rings for $81,500 -- which was nearly three times what Spina paid for them -- but began to believe Brady didn't have nephews and attempted to withdraw the deal.
Spina then sold the rings at an auction house for $100,000 on the same day that he received the rings and the man attempted to back out of the deal in November 2017.
One of the family rings also sold for $337,219 during a February 2018 auction.
Spina admitted to defrauding the Orange County ring broker and falsely claiming the rings "were ordered for Tom Brady directly from [the Ring Company] for select family members" in his plea agreement.
He also admitted to defrauding the victim in relation to three wire transfers for the deposit on the family rings and committing identity theft by falsely posing as the former Patriots player in order to obtain the rings.
Spina will pay restitution to the former Patriots player in relation to the incident and faces a statutory maximum penalty of 92 years in federal prison, but his actual sentence is likely to be substantially less after a federal judge considers U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors in federal court in Los Angeles, where Spina is scheduled to make his first appearance on January 31.
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