Amit Patel to plead to stealing $22 million from Jacksonville Jaguars
attorney‘s Office federal court documents lists some of the lavish purchases made by Amit Patel who is accused of $22 million in fraud against his former employee, the Jacksonville Jaguars.”/>
A former Jacksonville Jaguars employee linked to about $22 million in theft from the team is expected to plead guilty to wire fraud and illegal monetary transactions in federal court, according to his attorney.
Court documents show Amit Anil Patel maintained a lavish lifestyle while being accused of swindling the team as its financial planning manager and purchasing a condo in Ponte Vedra, a Tesla, a $95,000 watch, cryptocurrencies, electronics, sports memorabilia, a country club membership, entertainment event tickets, chartering private jets and placing gambling bets online.
An Uber customer even cited Patel was his driver in a Tesla while in town for the Jaguars’ recent Monday Night Football game against the Cincinnati Bengals.
Patel’s attorney, Alex King, has previously said the 31-year-old suffers from a “serious gambling addiction” and the majority of the funds went to cover those debts. He is remorseful and apologizes.
In a statement reported by Times-Union news partner First Coast News, King said that “almost the entirety of the funds Mr. Patel used… were spent on the gambling websites and efforts to win money back, with the anticipation he would repay the funds with the winning and make the Jaguars whole.”
King refutes that Patel used the funds to live an “extravagant lifestyle,” specifically citing the Tesla Model 3. He says that he made his purchases “mostly with family money and other money earned.”
He says Patel only used the Jaguars’ funds “in a horribly misguided effort to pay back previous gambling losses.”
According to the Jaguars, Patel was fired in February 2023, and the FBI and U.S. attorney‘s Office have been investigating for several months.
Prosecutors said that in 2019 Patel became the “sole administrator” for the organization’s virtual credit card program, which is a payment method that essentially functions as a credit card without the need for a physical card. Patel was in charge of keeping track of these transactions in an Excel sheet and sending them to the accounting department.
According to the U.S. attorney‘s Office information filing, he would document legitimate transactions like catering, airfare and hotel charges multiple times, and include expenses that were expected in the future or inflate costs on his reports. The U.S. attorney‘s Office documented $22,221,454 in fraudulent transactions.
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The Jaguars released the following statement after the allegations were first reported:
“We can confirm that in February 2023, the team terminated the employment of the individual named in the filing. Over the past several months we have cooperated fully with the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida during their investigation and thank them for their efforts in this case. As was made clear in the charges, this individual was a former manager of financial planning and analysis who took advantage of his trusted position to covertly and intentionally commit significant fraudulent financial activity at the team’s expense for personal benefit. This individual had no access to confidential football strategy, personnel or other football information. The team engaged experienced law and accounting firms to conduct a comprehensive independent review, which concluded that no other team employees were involved in or aware of his criminal activity.”
It is unclear what Patel’s sentence would entail, but a guilty plea likely would mean he will have to forfeit his condo, Tesla and watch and enough property to equal the $22 million, according to court filings.
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