
How NBA executive Jeff David stole $13M from the Sacramento Kings - clairity
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/28078881/how-nba-executive-jeff-david-stole-13-million-sacramento-kings
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ilamont
He would have gotten away with it if it weren't for the HR exec seeing a red
flag. Makes you wonder how many other frauds are never discovered.

One other thing: These types of face-to-face, "close on a handshake"
negotiations are really open to various types of fraud. I was thinking about
this when listening to a friend discussing how he had negotiated a $12,000
discount for his child's base college tuition, by talking over the phone with
someone in the college admissions office. Or a commercial real-estate deal
that I participated in some years ago that involved several rounds of
negotiation. If one or both sides of these transactions wanted to extract some
financial benefit "on the side," it would be so easy to do it ... which leads
me to believe it happens all the time, anti-fraud laws and signed declarations
be damned.

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TheSpiceIsLife
I’m willing to bet the overwhelming majority of white collar crime goes
undetected.

Detection is probably difficult, and the agencies charged with investigating
and prosecuting are likely over worked.

~~~
datavirtue
Especially at banks. Very embarrassing and not worth the attention it would
garner if they pressed charges. There are a lot of financial institution that
have very weak controls. I've seen it first hand.

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IllusoryReverb
Anecdote from third world country here. Friend works in 'IT security company',
told me banks are the worst here.

One bank had guys in the IT department work for a couple of months then quit,
one after the other, apparetly after having stolen 'enough' money (whatever
that means to a thief). Rinse and repeat, till their company got called in.
That bank's systems were apparently that bad.

I always wondered whether it was that the bank had no proof of the theft or an
image thing where they could not afford to go after them because customers
would lose confidence in them.

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zlast
The craziest thing about this is that if Jeff didn't conduct all his (illegal)
business on his work laptop, he may never have been caught. And, the only
reason HR decided to look at his laptop was to find "a copy of a commission
structure to build out the corporate sales team" that Jeff was supposed to
leave behind before he left for another job.

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clairity
yes, exactly. he covered his tracks pretty well otherwise, but he apparently
lacked a fundamental understanding of how corporate computing assets are
managed.

it's good that he was caught and punished, especially since white-collar
crimes are relatively under-prosecuted. i'm more mixed about the severity of
punishment--restitution plus 7 years in prison. on one hand, it seems fair
relative to the sentence lengths of other crimes, but prison terms seem
onerous and overly-punitive overall to me.

~~~
adventured
Regarding the seven years. He'll probably do less than seven. The federal
system has no parole but has exemplary behavior and then he can also get
supervised release toward the end of his sentence. I'm of a mixed mind on how
severe white-collar crime sentences should be (and how to vary/judge them),
however that seems quite fair (if not light) when combined with restitution.
It's a very sizable fraud.

~~~
teachrdan
I was under the impression that you must serve at least 90% of your time
sentenced in federal prison, and that's with good behavior. The real variable
is whether you're put in minimum security prison. That's the tier where there
are nicer facilities and no fences. You can literally walk "off campus"\--at
least if you don't mind surely getting caught and sent to a high-security
prison afterwards.

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throwaway9980
Reading this I couldn’t help marveling at how poorly constructed the incentive
structure must have been. This guy was basically leaving millions of dollars
on the table until he realized he could take the money for himself.

How badly was his commission compensation setup so that he would turn to a
life of crime rather than close the extra millions and cash the commission
check?

~~~
gamblor956
According to other articles, his annual take-home was about $360k.

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jshaqaw
The end of the article where David is the pauper despite making half a million
a year hit home. Perspectives get so warped around wealth. I once worked with
a guy making $500k/year despite relatively low skills and education because he
was in the right place at the right time on Wall Street. But he fell in with a
social crowd of people with true wealth and his ego turned out to be a dark
monster. The guy ended up spending half a decade in prison after stealing
millions to try and keep up appearances with that crowd.

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throw7
The problem is identified when Jeff realizes that _no_ _one_ _will_ _know_.

The problem is one of character.

~~~
C1sc0cat
This is pro sports there are a lot of shady people, the NBA is a lot cleaner
that football is (soccer)

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Aloha
I don't think of ESPN and high quality in depth reporting in the same thought
- perhaps I should be.

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slg
With the death of Deadspin and the hollowing out of Sports Illustrated over
the last month or so, they are one of the few remaining places that will do
this type of in depth sports reporting. However I will point out the target of
this piece is not a league, team, player, or anyone that ESPN would have to be
afraid of pissing off.

~~~
logjammin
You're right about this, of course, but ESPN has stuff of this quality on a
pretty darn slow drip given the talent they have and the even greater talent
they could afford if they decided to make quality investigative / long form
stuff a real priority.

I suspect the fact that they do it at all is that it's some enlightened
manager's little feifdom that they protect and that it'll be gone as soon as
that person finds another gig or retires. I doubt that dyed-in-the-wool
corporate types are in love with these operations, as sad as it is.

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ngneer
A man in the middle attack can be avoided with mutual authentication. The
fault lies with the companies that entrusted so much to a single individual.

~~~
semiotagonal
The number of people involved in the authentication would have to exceed the
other party's ability to bribe them. Corrupt practices could extend to both
companies involved in a deal.

~~~
jeffwilcox
For an interesting read, check out the 1MDB scandal - the book "The Billion
Dollar Whale" is quite a read.

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cylinder
Amazing the lack of financial controls. You have the salesman drawing up his
own invoices and payment instructions!

As someone who's seen the inside of pro sports teams, most of them are a
complete mess.

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tenant
What would have happened to him had he had qualms of conscience before he was
caught? If he'd owned up and paid the money back he'd probably have just
gotten a lighter sentence.

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duxup
I'm always surprised by people's willingness to leave so much personal
information on a work computer. In this case actually leaving the breadcrumbs
there.

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rosybox
The obliviousness of what was facing him after learning the FBI was on to him
is mind blowing. He thought he could pay it all back and be fine? His wife
sticking by him this whole time is also amazing to me. Why? He's a crook. He's
ruined her and their children's life. He doesn't deserve them.

~~~
vkou
> The obliviousness of what was facing him after learning the FBI was on to
> him is mind blowing. He thought he could pay it all back and be fine?

I mean, it did work out. Guy will be out of prison in ~3-4 years. That's about
27 too few, given how we sentence people, but them's the breaks...

> His wife sticking by him this whole time is also amazing to me.

Blood runs thicker than water.

~~~
munificent
_> Blood runs thicker than water. _

Just FYI, that aphorism does not apply in this case. That is, unless David is
a blood relative of his wife, in which case I guess he's got other problems...

~~~
DuskStar
"Bonds forged of blood are thicker than the waters of the womb" is the
original, I believe. And it basically meant that people you fought besides
were closer than literal family.

Not exactly the meaning of the modern version, though.

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AnimalMuppet
Wow. I feel bad for his wife.

~~~
taurath
Its hard for me to understand how someone could accept any explanation for
being able to purchase a $8.8m house on a "low 6 figures" salary. To me thats
the most idiotic thing - the guy just flat out SPENT the money, all likely in
one sum.

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ip26
Who says she knew what his salary was?

~~~
taurath
If you’re married and own property together, it’s stupid to not know the
others financial state.

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bagacrap
But he's a fraudster, you don't think he could manage to mislead her?

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m3kw9
The classic take a cut at the middle

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mythrwy
Article starts like this:

"THE MOVING VAN from Sacramento chokes its way through Miami's thick August
air"

What is it with want-to-be novelists and journalism? Who has time for all
that? It's a plague lately in media. Just tell the simple story.

~~~
ericzawo
If you can't make it past the first three paragraphs before making an
assessment of this well researched piece perhaps you need to evaluate how much
time YOU have. It's a feature article not an AP wire report.

~~~
mythrwy
I wouldn't say I "can't", nor do I believe my distaste for this form of
writing indicates I should evaluate anything about my use of time.

Frankly that along with the caps "YOU" comes off a bit hostile, but I see you
are a writer so maybe it came of as a personal attack of sorts. Apologies if
so.

I see these type of articles as ultimately doomed to fail because the audience
they are after likely isn't the curl up by the fire with a novel while wearing
a faded beige cardigan that smells of tea and old book set. Plus they are
really annoying when I'm trying to obtain information.

It's not just time. More attention and working memory. These types of articles
abuse it for very little gain. They are like Christian rock. Not good rock.
Not very Christian.

This is an entirely different topic from how well researched the article is.

Consider this an opinion piece rather than a news comment.

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umanwizard
> THE MOVING VAN from Sacramento chokes its way through Miami's thick August
> air.

I immediately stop reading articles that start like this, because I don't know
how many paragraphs it will go on for.

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CPLX
If that's the case you're missing out on quite a bit.

~~~
umanwizard
I'm okay with missing out on ESPN's attempt to write literary prose.

~~~
ciabattabread
Then the podcast version of the story’s for you:

[http://m.espn.com/general/play?id=28114264](http://m.espn.com/general/play?id=28114264)

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rolltiide
I’ve seen that obsessed accountant type, and I’ve been that obsessed
accountant perusing public filings

There are lots of discrepancies that dont really need the fireworks

Self dealing, contracts awarded, etc

If they get paid its fine.

Jeff David should have been prosecuted in 2026 on event of non-payment from
his unraveled scheme. If everyone felt they were made whole but noticed the
external entities then it should have just garnered a slow upward headnod from
the current executives saying “What a G, my G, ya feel”

~~~
choward
I can't tell if you're trolling or not. But if not, this is a terrible way to
think: It's okay to steal and gamble with someone else's money as long as you
become rich enough to pay it back? Only if you lose more money than you steal
do you belong in jail? Chances are that you will make money over time since
the economy grows over time. But only wealthy white collar people should get
this opportunity to make interest off money that isn't theirs, right?

~~~
rolltiide
No not trolling

It is commonplace and yes transfers of money and property done in “white
collar“ ways have less harsh consequences and I no longer have any opinion on
that

My only point is that this is a misuse of public resources

