This Eagles fan was selling knock-off championship rings from his house. Feds found out
A Rehoboth Beach man was sentenced to a year of house arrest Wednesday for trafficking knock-off Super Bowl championship rings on the internet.
Prosecutors say the man trafficked tens of thousands of dollars worth of counterfeit rings manufactured overseas to look like those awarded by the NFL to commemorate the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' 2021 Super Bowl victory. Federal investigators also found in the man's home thousands of additional counterfeit rings bearing the legally protected marks of several popular American sports leagues, court documents state.
The defendant, who is in his 60s and wore a Philadelphia Eagles jacket entering and exiting the Wilmington federal courthouse Wednesday, is not named in this story as the crime was not a threat to public safety.
The crime
In February 2021, the Buccaneers, led by popular quarterback Tom Brady, beat the Kansas City Chiefs to win the franchise's second NFL championship.
Championship rings are awarded to players and staff and are not sold by the NFL to the general public.
About a month after the Buccaneers' Super Bowl victory, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators "received information" that the defendant was importing counterfeit goods from China, according to a memo written by federal prosecutors ahead of the defendant's sentencing hearing.
Between January and April of 2021, customs investigators seized six shipments from China to the defendant containing numerous fake championship rings. The man received at least three warnings from federal investigators noting his shipments had been seized and that his import of the counterfeit goods was against the law.
In what prosecutors described as "blatant disregard," the man kept importing the fake rings and would then resell them through online retailers like eBay.
In September 2021, federal officials intercepted another package and conducted a "controlled delivery" of the package to his home. He accepted the package and then investigators conducted a search of his residence.
At that time, the man was in the process of updating an online listing, the prosecutors' sentencing memo states. His computer screen was open to a "revise your listing page" where he was advertising that "Official 2020-2021 Tampa Bay Buccaneers Championship Super Bowl Rings" were "in stock," according to the memo.
He was ultimately charged with and pleaded guilty earlier this year to trafficking in counterfeit merchandise specifically for the fake Buccaneers rings. Prosecutors and the man's defense attorney agreed that the fake Buccaneers rings had a retail value of about $40,000.
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In total, federal officials seized from the man more than 1,000 counterfeit NFL rings, some 700 MLB rings, more than 400 bearing marks trademarked by the NBA and NHL, as well as a handful of fake NCAA championship rings, according to court documents. He was ultimately charged only with trafficking the fake Buccaneers' merchandise.
A recent eBay search showed what purported to be authentic Super Bowl championship rings selling for more than $5,000 apiece.
The sentence
Federal sentencing guidelines recommend a sentence between eight and 14 months' imprisonment given the crime and other factors a federal judge considers when issuing a sentence.
Assistant U.S. Attorney William E. LaRosa said the imprisonment recommendation could be satisfied by home confinement and argued that the man's nonexistent criminal history and other factors weigh toward a year of probation and house arrest.
In arguing for the same, defense attorney Eugene Maurer emphasized his client's recent, unsuccessful back surgery and the debilitating pain from his back condition, writing in court documents that incarceration would "literally paralyze him."
In court, Maurer said his client lives the life of a "hermit" and is not a threat to anyone or any trademarked brand going forward. The defendant told presiding Judge Maryellen Noreika that he wasn't aware that flipping the knock-off rings constituted a crime because of how many others sell such goods.
"It turns out, it is illegal and I apologize for that," the man said.
Earlier in the hearing, Noreika said that most people who receive written warnings from federal officials stating they are breaking the law stop that conduct.
"He received three," she said in a stern interaction with Maurer.
She called it a crime motivated by "greed" because the defendant figured the "Tampa Bay Buccaneers had enough money." She said his actions "devalued" the trademarks of at least one team.
How often does this happen?
In the 2022 fiscal year, customs agents seized more than 20,000 shipments of counterfeit goods with a suggested retail price totaling nearly $3 billion. These include everything from counterfeit clothing to electronics to pharmaceuticals, according to the agency's website.
Last year, customs officials announced a large-scale seizure of fake Super Bowl rings from a man in Illinois.
Intellectual property criminal prosecutions are rare in Delaware and officials in the office of U.S. Attorney David Weiss did not comment on how often such cases are pursued both locally.
In court documents, prosecutors noted that the Buccaneers franchise, the victim in this crime, did not respond to a letter that could have led to them receiving restitution from the man. Noreika told the man he was lucky they didn't because she would have assessed "every penny" of potential restitution.
Prosecutors also did not seek any monetary fine given the defendant's perceived inability to pay such a fee.
Ultimately, he was sentenced to one year of home confinement and three years of probation, during which probation officials have the authority to monitor his digital devices down to each keystroke.
Contact Xerxes Wilson at (302) 324-2787 or xwilson@delawareonline.com.
This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Delaware Eagles fan sentenced for selling knock-off Super Bowl rings
