Update: Arrested on a mail-fraud charge as well.
NESN today sued its now former vice president for digital media to recover the $575,000 it charges he made off with by sending money to a company he made up with a near identical name to a company the network actually wanted to work with.
In a suit filed in US District Court in Boston today, the sports network owned by the Red Sox and Bruins charges that Ariel Legassa, whom it hired in 2019 to lead its online efforts, created a dummy company called Alley CT and then funneled money to it that was supposed to go to Alley NY, an actual company, with employees and everything, that was to supply software and Web development for a new project NESN was working on.
Until he was fired yesterday, Legassa oversaw a staff of two dozen.
NESN alleges Legassa created his dummy Alley company last February, about three weeks before he oversaw the signing of a contract with the actual Alley company.
The following day, he sent invoices from Alley CT totaling $110,000 to NESN’s Accounts Payable department for payment, even though NESN had no contract with Alley CT. ...
At various times between March 3, 2021 and January 5, 2022, Legassa sent NESN’s Accounts Payable department at least eleven invoices purportedly from Alley CT for payment by NESN. As VP of Digital, Legassa had authority to approve invoices relating to digital media, and he sent these invoices at various times from his personal and NESN email addresses.
The invoices from the Alley CT are identical to invoices NESN received from Alley NY in all respects (including in the use of Alley NY’s trademark design) except that Alley
NY invoices include the mailing address for Alley NY and information about how to make a payment directly to Alley NY’s Chase account; whereas Alley CT invoices include the Connecticut address controlled by Legassa and lacked any bank account or routing information.
NESN says it only learned of the subterfuge on Tuesday, and claims Legassa acknowledged at least part of the fraud in a phone call with NESN's vice president of finance yesterday. The network than cashiered him.
In its suit, NESN says it wants its money back, plus attorney and court costs, plus any damages a jury would conclude Legassa needs to be made to pay.
Legassa has yet to respond to the suit.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 Complete complaint | 176.88 KB |
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Comments
Love the Adam version
By Ian
Fri, 01/07/2022 - 9:16pm
But now can we hear the story as told by Jack Edwards?
It takes a dummy company to
By Notfromboston
Fri, 01/07/2022 - 9:33pm
It takes a dummy company to know another.
Sounds like a pretty good
By zod
Fri, 01/07/2022 - 10:50pm
Sounds like a pretty good criminal complaint as well!
Nesn just wants their money
By anon
Sat, 01/08/2022 - 6:57am
Nesn just wants their money back . Why are Americans so obsessed with throwing people in jail
For the same reason we're obsessed with football
By Will LaTulippe
Sat, 01/08/2022 - 10:20am
It's just that ingrained into our society.
Right?
By brianjdamico
Sat, 01/08/2022 - 10:41am
What's the big deal here? It's just fraud and theft of over half a million dollars, not like any real crimes occurred. /s
Exactly
By Parkwayne
Sat, 01/08/2022 - 12:47pm
It's not like he was smoking a joint near children or shoplifting $20 of stuff from a Family Dollar.
Anon's legal code
By Bob Leponge
Sun, 01/09/2022 - 12:42pm
If you steal shit and get caught, all you need to do is give back the shit you stole and we're all good.
Why hasn’t this guy been
By anon
Sat, 01/08/2022 - 9:36am
Why hasn’t this guy been arrested? Why is it we don’t consider white collar crime to be real crime?
Not like anyone
By THE_WIZ
Sat, 01/08/2022 - 1:34pm
Has ever heard of shell companies or “silos” right?
I could think of a handful of local, major union construction companies who do this type of thing: but they do it very well…
Philanthro-capitalism and the right friends would have made this much more “legit” for our pal at NESN.
I think there's a bit of a difference
By brianjdamico
Sat, 01/08/2022 - 2:31pm
between a company moving money around with some creative accounting, and an employee moving company money to where the company would not be sending the money if they weren't being fooled into doing so.
No wonder NESN costs cable companies so much
By AMCoffee
Mon, 01/10/2022 - 9:41am
And therefore higher cable bills -
The guy supervised two dozen people AND had contracts with private companies for "online efforts". Incredible overhead.