Joseph Lombardo, the founder of Prim Capital Corp., has been sentenced to 18-months in prison for defrauding the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA), according to Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today.
Prim Capital advised the NBPA between 2001 and 2013, handling up to $250 million on behalf of the players association. Lombardo plead guilty to charges of wire fraud and obstruction of the grand jury in 2013.
From the report of his trial in November of 2013 (via Bloomberg):
Lombardo, 72, told U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman today in Manhattan that from the summer of 2011 through this year, he engaged in a scheme to defraud the NBPA by creating a fraudulent contract between the group and his company. He also said he conspired to obstruct a federal grand jury in New York.
“I and at least one other person agreed to impede and attempted to impede the grand jury,” Lombardo said. “We agreed that we would provide testimony we knew not to be true about the nature and origin of the contracts between Prim Capital and the National Basketball Players Association.”
