In a new piece, ESPN’s Kevin Arnovitz outlines the way a disgraced NBA executive who is now serving time in federal prison was able to steal more than $13.4 million from the Sacramento Kings.
Over the course of a decade as Sacramento’s chief revenue officer (CRO), Jeff David was able to funnel money from the team and its partners into an account for a shell consulting company he founded in 2009, Sacramento Sports Partners LLC.
David, who made $30,000 a month and also received a yearly bonus, used the money to purchase two homes worth a combined $11.8 million in Southern California that he planned to make improvements to and sell for a profit.
After David took a job as Miami’s CRO in 2018, Kings SVP of human resources Stacy Wegzyn, stumbled across the scheme while looking through some of David’s files on the team’s cloud system.
Wegzyn unraveled what was going on and contacted the FBI, who did a brief investigation and then sent agents to greet Davis as he was moving into his new home in Miami.
Eventually, the father-of-three was sentenced to seven years at West Virginia’s Federal Correctional Institution.
David, who was hoping for a lighter sentence, said during court that he intended to pay the Kings back the money he had stolen.
“I had intended to keep the profits for my kids’ college and my retirement,” David told the judge during his sentencing. “I didn’t want to use the principal for my family. I only wanted to use the profit. The principal was going to go back the Kings. It was incredibly stupid I’ve lost the respect that I had and I’ve lost a job and career that I loved … When I look back I can’t believe what was going on in my head.”
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