A former NESN govt who was convicted by a federal jury for stealing greater than $500,000 from the sports activities community has misplaced his attraction.
Ariel Legassa was sentenced final 12 months to three.5 years in jail and ordered to pay $580,500 in restitution after he was convicted of cash laundering and mail fraud.
The ex-VP at NESN had stolen practically $600,000 from New England Sports Community by establishing a faux firm and utilizing it to cost NESN for work that was by no means executed.
Legassa spent the funds on private bills, together with a personal airplane, a Tesla, a BMW, a Land Rover and bank card payments.
He ended up interesting his conviction and calling for a brand new trial, arguing that erroneously admitted proof tainted the decision. However the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the First Circuit didn’t agree with Legassa — and not too long ago affirmed the convictions.
NESN employed Legassa in 2019 as vice chairman of digital operations, with a beginning annual wage of $255,000 plus bonus compensation.
Legassa’s job duties included setting the price range for NESN’s digital operations. That price range allotted a considerable sum to pay exterior distributors for varied initiatives, resembling revamping NESN’s web site and designing new on-line merchandise.
In early 2021, Legassa reached a cope with Alley Interactive, LLC, a New York-based vendor, to assist develop NESN’s web site. Legassa was Alley NY’s solely contact at NESN, and at Legassa’s request, NESN budgeted about $1 million to pay Alley NY.
In the meantime, Legassa established a fictitious vendor in Connecticut, which he referred to as Alley Interactive, LLC (Alley CT). As a part of his scheme, Legassa created an Alley CT bill that seemed like an Alley NY bill.
Quickly after, Legassa started approving and submitting Alley NY invoices for work it carried out on NESN’s web site. Legassa additionally started submitting Alley CT invoices for work that was by no means carried out.
In the meantime, his wage jumped to $265,200 after he threatened to depart NESN. Then later, NESN once more elevated his wage to $325,000.
Legassa’s scheme crumbled in January 2022, after Alley NY performed a public data search and found each the existence of Alley CT and that Legassa owned the corporate. Phrase of this discovery reached NESN, which fired Legassa.
Then a grand jury indicted Legassa on seven counts of mail fraud — one depend for every verify NESN despatched to Alley CT. He was additionally charged with three counts of cash laundering for every withdrawal from the Alley CT checking account that exceeded $10,000.
In his attraction, Legassa argued that the district courtroom mistakenly allowed NESN’s COO and CFO to make use of the phrase “fraud” throughout his testimony.
“The admission of this evidence was clearly harmless,” the appeals courtroom wrote in its ruling.
The proof towards Legassa was “so overwhelming” that it’s unlikely the “fraud” testimony influenced the decision, the courtroom added.
The COO and CFO additionally used the phrase “unethical and illegal” throughout his testimony. Once more, the courtroom dominated that utilizing that phrase mustn’t result in a retrial.
“Here, Legassa has provided us with no reason to think that the jurors were unable to set this testimony to the side,” the courtroom wrote. “Moreover, we fail to see how this stricken testimony was seriously prejudicial given that it was (Raymond) Guilbault’s response to Legassa’s accusation that he was part of the wrongdoing. We thus decline Legassa’s request to vacate his convictions on this basis.”
Legassa was additionally difficult that the courtroom admitted proof of his spending on luxurious gadgets in the course of the scheme — and that shortly after NESN fired him, Legassa transferred cash out of a joint checking account he shared together with his spouse.
“Here, the evidence of Legassa’s voluminous spending on luxury items was plainly relevant because it was probative of his motive to steal money from NESN,” the courtroom wrote, including, “Similarly, the bank transfer evidence was plainly relevant because it tended to show Legassa’s consciousness of guilt, insofar as he wanted immediately to remove the money from a personal account in his name once he learned that NESN was suspicious of his conduct.”
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