A ticket broker convicted of fraudulently selling tickets to Chicago White Sox baseball games has been sentenced to one and a half years in federal prison.
During a hearing, the judge sentenced Bruce Lee, 35, to the time in prison after a jury in October had found him guilty.
The judge rejected lawyers’ arguments for probation that Lee had actually helped the Major League Baseball (MLB) team, as he had put more concession-buying fans in seats at games.
An indictment was made public in 2020 and alleged that Lee had made more than $860,000 (£632,000/€744,000) through his brokerage, Great Tickets, by fraudulently selling nearly 35,000 tickets for White Sox games.
Lee sold these tickets over four baseball seasons between 2016 and 2019.
Prosecutors said that two now-former White Sox ticket sales booth staffers, James Costello and William O’Neil, created thousands of discounted and complimentary tickets in exchange for money.
These were generated without the required vouchers, with Lee then going on to sell the tickets through online resale platform, StubHub.
According to reports from the Chicago Tribune, US District Judge James Kennelly also ordered Lee to pay $74,650 in restitution to the White Sox and his co-defendants, and to personally give up about $450,000 of his dishonest gains.
Image: Jose Francisco Morales on Unsplash
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