In per week it misplaced QB Trevor Lawrence to damage, the Jaguars are additionally coping with shedding $22m to ex-employee Amit Patel. [Image: Shutterstock.com]

Jet-set life-style

A US District Courtroom in Jacksonville, Florida has accused a former finance supervisor of the Jacksonville Jaguars of stealing over $22m from the NFL franchise to bankroll his jet-set life-style.

used the cash to gamble on-line, purchase a apartment in Ponte Vedra Seaside, constitution personal jets

Amit Patel allegedly used the cash to gamble on-line, purchase a apartment in Ponte Vedra Seaside, constitution personal jets, and e book luxurious lodges. The courtroom submitting doesn’t cease there, itemizing a Nissan pickup, a Tesla Mannequin 3 sedan, cryptocurrency, NFTs, sports activities memorabilia, and a luxurious watch value over $95,000, as simply a few of Patel’s different reported purchases.

Earlier this week, in accordance with The Athletic, Division of Justice prosecutors charged Patel with wire fraud and unlawful financial transaction. Patel’s alleged pilfering from the NFL franchise ran from 2018 till he was fired in February 2023.

Bank card hustle

Courtroom paperwork reveal Patel was a Monetary Planning and Evaluation Supervisor for the Jaguars in his most up-to-date position. As such, in accordance with The Athletic, Patel turned administrator of the NFL group’s digital bank card (VCC) program.

Beneath the VCC program, courtroom papers state, Patel allegedly started cooking the books with fraudulent transactions.

entered utterly fictitious transactions”

The submitting states Patel lined up his dealings by figuring out “reoccurring VCC transactions, reminiscent of catering, airfare, and lodge costs” and duplicating them, whereas additionally overstating the prices of legit reoccurring transactions. It provides that Patel “entered utterly fictitious transactions that may sound believable, however that by no means truly occurred.”

As Patel used the VCC program to allegedly bankroll his champagne life-style, he finally got here to the eye of FBI and the US Legal professional’s Workplace for the Center District of Florida (USAO-MDF).

The Jaguars in a press release mentioned the franchise had “cooperated totally” with each the FBI and USAO-MDF investigations into its former worker. The group acknowledged Patel “took benefit of his trusted place to covertly and deliberately commit vital fraudulent monetary exercise on the group’s expense for private profit.”

Huge questions

The Athletic famous that the courtroom submitting didn’t identify precisely what Patel wager on on-line.

“Requested if the group wished to touch upon that allegation, a Jaguars spokesperson declined,” the media outlet acknowledged.  

One other huge query for the Jaguars this week is the damage to quarterback Trevor Lawrence. Whereas not as unhealthy because the Bengals’ Joe Burrow or the Giants’ Daniel Jones, Lawrence’s damage provides to a freakish QB-hobbling bug which has seen odds shift considerably beneath the Jaguars as C.J. Beathard takes over the Jags’ playmaker helm.