Ex-Suns ticket manager sentenced to 1 year in jail for selling tickets unlawfully
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A former Phoenix Suns ticket manager was sentenced to one year in jail and three years of supervised probation Friday after he unlawfully sold more than 2,800 tickets to a third-party vendor between 2017 and 2019.
Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced the sentence of Jeffrey Marcussen, 44, for selling unused Phoenix Suns tickets in StubHub, a ticket exchange and resale company, "for his own profit," according to a news release.
Marcussen received nearly half a million dollars from StubHub from sales that happened between August 2017 and February 2019. He also failed to pay taxes on the earnings and owed $11,818 to the Arizona Department of Revenue for his 2017 and 2018 taxes.
Marcussen worked for the Phoenix Suns for 15 years, and he controlled and handled ticketing as an executive staff member until he left the team in 2019.
StubHub contacted the National Basketball Association after it discovered five different StubHub accounts linked to Marcussen, court documents stated.
The Phoenix Suns does not sell game tickets through StubHub, according to court documents.
In September 2020, Marcussen was charged with one count of fraud schemes and artifices, one count of theft and two counts of false return. After a plea agreement, Marcussen pled guilty to fraud scheme and artifices and theft in April 2022.
Marcussen has fully repaid the Phoenix Suns $458,218 and the Arizona Department of Revenue $11,818, according to the attorney general's office.
In a statement provided to The Arizona Republic in April, Marcussen’s attorney Mark Kokanovich said, “Jeff worked for the Phoenix Suns for close to 20 years. After the cold-blooded, tragic murder of his brother near the end of Jeff’s career with the Suns, Jeff began selling tickets without team approval. Jeff admitted to the sales and reimbursed the team while cooperating with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.”
The Arizona Attorney General’s Office Special Investigation Section conducted this investigation.
Amaris Encinas contributed to this report.
Reach breaking news reporter Angela Cordoba Perez at Angela.CordobaPerez@Gannett.com or on Twitter @AngelaCordobaP.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Ex-Suns ticket manager sentenced to 1 year in jail for illegal ticket sales
