Former Jacksonville Jaguars worker accused of stealing over $22 million to purchase apartment, vehicles and cryptocurrency

A former Jacksonville Jaguars monetary supervisor has been accused of stealing greater than $22 million from the franchise by its digital bank card program between 2019 and 2023, in line with a seven-page courtroom submitting.

Amit Patel, who labored for the Jaguars for 5 years beginning in 2018, is charged with one depend of wire fraud and one depend of unlawful financial transaction in paperwork filed in U.S. District Courtroom in Jacksonville. If he’s discovered responsible, he could also be required to forfeit property and belongings acquired or financed from the proceeds, the doc states.

A press release from the Jaguars confirmed they’re “Enterprise A” known as the sufferer within the paperwork.

“We will affirm that in February 2023, the crew terminated the person named within the submitting,” the crew stated in an announcement. “Over the previous a number of months, we now have absolutely cooperated with the FBI and the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace for the Center District of Florida throughout their investigation and we thank them for his or her efforts on this case.

“As made clear within the prices, this particular person was a former monetary planning and evaluation supervisor who took benefit of his place of belief to covertly and deliberately commit important fraudulent monetary exercise on the crew’s expense for private acquire.

“This particular person didn’t have entry to confidential soccer methods, personnel or different soccer info. The crew retained skilled authorized and accounting corporations to conduct a complete impartial assessment, which concluded that no different crew workers have been concerned in or conscious of his exercise. felony”.

The Athletic was the primary to report the stadium filling.

Patel is accused of utilizing the cash to purchase a Tesla Mannequin three sedan, a Nissan pickup truck, a apartment in Ponte Vedra Seashore, a Patek Philippe Nautilus look ahead to $95,000 and cryptocurrency, in line with courtroom paperwork obtained by CBS affiliate WJAX-TV . .

He additionally used cash to position bets on on-line playing websites, in line with the submitting.

Patel additionally allegedly used the cash to buy sports activities memorabilia, nation membership memberships, spa therapies, and tickets to sporting occasions and concert events. And he rented non-public planes for himself and his pals and made an advance cost to a felony protection regulation agency.

Patel’s legal professional didn’t instantly reply to a message searching for remark.

Patel is listed within the Jaguars’ media guides from 2018 to 2022. His titles throughout these years have been coordinator of economic planning and evaluation, after which supervisor of economic planning and evaluation.

Patel oversaw the corporate’s month-to-month monetary statements and departmental budgets and served as administrator of the membership’s digital bank card program, which the doc stated allowed approved workers to “request VCC for business-related purchases or bills.”

Patel’s authority over the VCC program allowed him to make fraudulent transactions, in line with the doc. He allegedly duplicated and inflated transactions for gadgets akin to catering, airfare and lodge prices and submitted false transactions that appeared official.

“As a part of the defendant’s scheme, as an alternative of precisely reporting his VCC transactions, the defendant (Patel) created integration recordsdata containing quite a few false and fraudulent entries and emailed them to the accounting division of Enterprise A (Jaguars ),” in line with courtroom paperwork obtained. on CBS affiliate WJAX-TV. “He used a wide range of strategies to hide his illicit transactions by omitting them from integration recordsdata, whereas nonetheless making the whole greenback quantity of VCC bills match the balances paid by Firm A for this system’s line of credit score. VCC”.