Following an #FBI art crime team investigation, Scott V. Spina Jr., of Roseland, New Jersey, has been sentenced to 3 years in prison for fraudulently obtaining & selling 3 Tom Brady Super Bowl championship rings. Details @FBILosAngeles, @USAO_LosAngeles: https://t.co/ix5txP0Ifb
— FBI Boston (@FBIBoston) August 30, 2022
A New Jersey man has been sentenced to three years in prison for an elaborate fraud scheme that involves fake Super Bowl rings and Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady.
Scott V. Spina obtained a real Super Bowl LI ring from a New England Patriots player, which opened up an even more complex scheme to get “family rings” he would later pretend had been produced for Brady’s family members.
Here are some of the details from the California State Attorney’s Office:
The scheme began in 2017, when Spina purchased a Super Bowl LI ring awarded to a Patriots player who subsequently left the team. Spina, who bilked the former player by paying for the ring with at least one bad check, sold the ring soon after for $63,000 to a well-known broker of championship rings.
When Spina obtained the player ring, he also received the information that allowed the former player to purchase Super Bowl rings for family and friends that are slightly smaller than the player rings.
“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 court documents. “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 entered into an agreement with the Orange County man who purchased the player’s Super Bowl ring to sell him the three family rings that Spina now claimed Brady had given to his nephews. After agreeing to buy the three rings for $81,500 – nearly three times what Spina paid for the rings – the buyer started to believe that Brady did not have nephews, and he tried to withdraw from the deal.
The same day that the buyer tried to back out, and the same day that Spina received the rings in November 2017, Spina immediately sold them to an auction house for $100,000. During an auction in February 2018, one of the family rings was sold for $337,219.
Yeah, that’s a wild one.
Brady’s already got seven Super Bowl rings to his name, but this guy still wanted him to have more.
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