A former Sacramento Kings executive will spend seven years in prison for stealing $13.4 million from the team.
Jeffrey David, who was the Kings’ chief revenue officer, was sentenced Monday.
He entered a guilty plea in December to federal charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. The crimes carried up to 22 years in prison.
David, 44, took money that sponsors and advertisers paid by having the companies write checks to a shell company instead of the team in 2015 and 2016. He also forged the signatures of other team executives.
Prosecutors said he used the money on an $8 million property on the beach in Southern California and a private jet. His crimes were discovered by a Kings employee after David moved on to the same job with the Miami Heat last year.
“The brazen scheme involved forgeries, stolen corporate executive identities, money laundering and even instructing a former colleague to destroy evidence,” U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott said in a statement, adding the “sentence should deter others from committing substantial frauds such as this one.”
The Department of Justice said he has returned $13.2 million.
