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2 Alabama men convicted of defrauding professional athlete of $500,000
The unnamed athlete gave the men $500,000 to invest in a sports marketing agency. Instead, they used the money on personal expenses.
www.al.com
2 Alabama men convicted of defrauding professional athlete of $500,000
- Published: Feb. 28, 2024, 5:49 p.m.
Two Alabama men were convicted of federal financial crimes Wednesday for defrauding a professional athlete of $500,000, prosecutors said Wednesday.
A jury in federal court in Anniston found Anthony Lamont Frazier, 41, of Talladega, guilty on 24 counts of money laundering, four counts of structuring, three counts of tax fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud following a four-day trial, prosecutors said.
Before the trial, Birmingham resident Frederick Andre Spencer, 38, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, false statements on a loan application and wire fraud for his involvement in submitting false loan materials under the Paycheck Protection Program and obtaining COVID-19 money from the Small Business Administration based on those false representations.
“This fraud was driven by the defendants’ greed,” said Prim Escalona, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to investigate and prosecute those who commit complex financial crimes. I want to thank the prosecutors and our law enforcement partners for their hard work investigating and prosecuting this case.”
Frazier and Spencer agreed to work on behalf of the unnamed professional athlete to create a sports marketing agency called Head of Game.
The athlete gave the men $500,000 to invest in the agency, but Frazier immediately wired about $250,000 of those funds into the bank account for “Mom and Son’s Towing,” which was controlled by his mother, prosecutors said, citing trial evidence.
In 2019 and 2020, Frazier and Spencer used the athlete’s money for their personal expenses instead of building the agency.
The money was used on luxury travel, dental bills and cash withdrawals.
By the middle of 2020, almost all of the $500,000 investment was used to enrich Frazier and Spencer.
Frazier used $100,000 of the funds to purchase a house in Atlanta on a short sale and deposited the proceeds of the sale into one of his own accounts, prosecutors said.
The evidence also showed Frazier substantially underreported his income on his 2017, 2018, and 2019 tax returns. He did not report income relating to drug proceeds and fraud proceeds from Head of Game.
Between 2017 and 2020, Frazier worked as a tax assessor for Talladega County and used his work truck for drug trafficking and money laundering the proceeds.
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