Sporting Events At The University of Kansas

Two men believed that the theft of ticket sales to sporting events at the University of Kansas, was a legitimate way to supplement their income received probation in federal court Monday.

Jason Jeffries, 36, and Brandon W. Simmons, 31, who pleaded guilty in July to the information at the source of the crime.

Jeffries, a former deputy director of ticket operations, admitted having hidden the tickets flights by erasing data from a card in the ATM, so taking notes with a swimming pool available to taxpayers athletic program.

Prosecutors said Simmons, a former school assistant athletic director for sales and marketing, took the tickets for which he was entitled to, and sent them to Oklahoma companies ticket broker, with whom he attended high school. He created false records to conceal the theft, prosecutors said
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Simmons said U.S. District Judge Wesley E. Brown that he would spend the rest of his life repairing the damage to his reputation.

"I made a terrible mistake by deciding, in this circumstance," he said.

Jeffries apologize for the University, its sponsors and subscribers.

"I took the wrong direction in my life on the road," said Jeffries.

Both men began their collaboration at the beginning of the federal investigation and does not face the higher than the corresponding secret project to wire fraud, which prosecutors charged against the five others who also once worked with the Department of KU athletic.

And, unlike the five, which together shall be held by the government of $ 2,000,000, Jeffries, and Simmons is responsible for the return of a much lighter costs $ 56,000 and $ 157.480.

The combined return figure - $ 213.480 - is $ 1,000 more than the amount of an internal report of the university stated that Simmons received a ticket broker in Oklahoma and later shared with Jeffries.

In a tacit acknowledgment of poverty recordkeeping athletic department was under the ticket scam, said a lawyer to review the university's collaboration with Jeffries and Simmons was crucial to his work.

"Yes, without the cooperation of these men and their lawyers, he would have been much more difficult to obtain copies of tickets sold and the amount paid to employees - who had a deficit at the University of Kansas," attorney Jack Focht wrote in his May report.

Refund will be given to Kansas Athletics Inc., the nonprofit corporation that manages the university sports programs.

Lawyers for the men, said the two plan to start work immediately to pay restitution. Mark L. Bennett Jr., who represented Simmons, said his client works for an employer in Lenexa and recently received a promotion.

Thomas D. Haney said Jeffries is looking for a job and volunteers at her church.

The two men, each entitled to two free tickets to home football games and basketball, told investigators that they began to receive additional tickets from the ticket as director Charlette Blubaugh five or six years ago.

Blubaugh said the men, according to an internal report that would be the ticket to further compensation.

Blubaugh Jeffries has given permission to take the tickets and said, "He wants to be able to ask to bring him, but doing so would have done," according to researchers at the University.

And Blubaugh, Simmons said, "It would not be able to pay enough money in connection with the work I was doing and the position then to supplement their income with those tickets," said the internal report.

Blubaugh pleaded guilty to his role in the conspiracy and wire fraud to be sentenced next month with her husband, Thomas Blubaugh, a former consultant KU athletic department. Similar hearings are planned for Kassie Liebsch, a former airline manager, Rodney Jones, a former director of the Williams Educational Fund and Ben Kirtland, who led the fundraising efforts for the university and development.