UPDATE AT THE END OF THIS ARTICLE
Anytime we hear stories of employees embezzling money from their workplaces, it's tempting to wonder how little accountability these companies have. The higher the amount, the more we wonder how a corporation could be so clueless about how much money was flying out the door.
That's what makes this week's news out of Florida so stunning. As my friend and colleague Stephen Green demonstrates every week, Florida Men (and women) commit wild and crazy crimes with boldness. A former employee of the Jacksonville Jaguars might take the Florida Man cake with his embezzlement.
Amit Patel worked for the Jaguars from 2018 until the organization fired him in February of this year. The Athletic reports that Patel's name showed up in the Jaguars' media guides as "coordinator, financial planning and analysis," and then "manager, financial planning and analysis." During his time with the team, he allegedly helped himself to $22 million of the team's money.
“We can confirm that in February 2023, the team terminated the employment of the individual named in the filing,” the Jaguars said in a statement. “Over the past several months we have cooperated fully with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida during their investigation and thank them for their efforts in this case. As was made clear in the charges, this individual was a former manager of financial planning and analysis who took advantage of his trusted position to covertly and intentionally commit significant fraudulent financial activity at the team’s expense for personal benefit.”
The statement also notes that "This individual had no access to confidential football strategy, personnel or other football information. The team engaged experienced law and accounting firms to conduct a comprehensive independent review, which concluded that no other team employees were involved in or aware of his criminal activity."
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While Patel worked for the Jaguars, he was responsible for department budgets and monthly statements, and — most germane to this discussion — he oversaw the organization's virtual credit card (VCC) system, whereby employees could obtain a virtual card number for charge transactions.
It was that VCC system that allowed Patel to take massive advantage of the team's finances. The court filing states that Patel located “reoccurring VCC transactions, such as catering, airfare, and hotel charges, and then duplicated those transactions; he inflated the amounts of legitimate reoccurring transactions; he entered completely fictitious transactions that might sound plausible, but that never actually occurred.”
Court documents allege that Patel used the team's money to bet on sports and pay for travel for himself and friends, and he bought a condominium, a Tesla, and a Nissan pickup truck. He faces one count of wire fraud and one count of illegal monetary transaction.
If convicted, the court states that Patel will have to forfeit “in the amount of at least $22,221,454.40, which represents the proceeds of the offense in addition to assets purchased or funded with the proceeds of the offenses and/or involved in an illegal monetary transaction."
When the guy who was overseeing the budget allegedly commits this kind of financial fraud, you can't help but wonder: who's minding the store for the Jacksonville Jaguars?
UPDATE: Patel's attorney told The Athletic that his client is dealing with “serious gambling addiction” and plans to plead guilty to charges.
"Alex King said client Amit Patel bet on football and daily fantasy sports and when his losses started to pile up, began using fraudulently obtained money from the company’s virtual credit card (VCC) program to subsidize those losses," The Athletic reports, although the attorney could not confirm whether Patel bet on Jaguars games.
King said that his client used the VCC charges to pay back gambling debts and denies that Patel used the money to fund an expensive lifestyle. However, "Mr. Patel’s compulsive gambling only exacerbated the situation, and he continued to misappropriate funds in an effort to have gambling winnings offset his significant losses.”
Patel has fully cooperated with the investigation, according to his attorney, but King doesn't know whether a guilty plea will mean jail time.
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