A New Jersey man was sentenced to a three-year prison term for selling three Super Bowl rings engraved with Tom Brady’s name that he fraudulently obtained.
Along with the prison term, Scott V. Spina Jr., 25, will also be required to pay $63,000 in restitution to a former New England Patriots player he defrauded by paying for the player’s Super Bowl LI ring with a phony check in 2017, the New York Post reported.
Along with defrauding the player — whose ring he sold for $63,000 to a collector — Spina also fraudulently posed as that player with the company that makes the rings. After he learned that players could order nearly exact copies of a Super Bowl ring for family members, Spina posed as the player and asked the company to make three of them engraved with Brady’s name. He told the company that the engraving was supposed to be gifts for the birth of Brady’s baby.
A fan picture of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady (12) and his 6 rings during the New England Patriots Super Bowl Victory Parade on February 5. 2019, through the streets of Boston, Massachusetts. (Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
According to court documents, federal prosecutors said, “The rings were at no time authorized by Tom Brady. Defendant Spina intended to obtain the three rings by fraud and to sell them at a substantial profit.”
Spina later claimed the rings belonged to Brady and sold them for $100,000. One of the rings later sold for $337,219 at auction.
“Spina pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud, and one count of aggravated identity theft in February,” the Post noted.
Super Bowl rings sell for big money. In 2020, Patriots owner Robert Craft sold his 2017 ring for a whopping $1.025 million.
They are also frequently stolen from players. For example, last year, former Patriots player Vince Wilfork’s rings were stolen, allegedly by his own son.
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