The crazy things people go to prison for

When you win the Super Bowl, you get more than bragging rights. You get a gaudy, expensive ring that looks like it weighs as much as a set of brass knuckles. And looks like, in a pinch, you could use if as a brass knuck.

These rings are not quite up there with the Honus Wagner baseball card, which a few weeks ago sold for $7.25M at auction. 

For one thing, there are a lot more of these rings than there are Honus Wagner cards.

But they are something that sports memorabilia collectors like to collect.

Given the demand, a young New Jersey guy thought he was on to a a good thing when he found a former Patriots' player who was interested in selling his 2016 Super Bowl ring. 

So Scott Spina decided to take the ring off of the anonymous player's hand. He was even willing to pay good money for the privilege, figuring he could make a few bucks by quickly turning it around. As it turned out, Spina actually wasn't willing to pay good money for the ring. So he wrote a bad check to the former Patriot. Spina did, however, get the sell it quickly on the turnaround part right. He sold the ring "for $63,000 to a  well-known broker of championship rings." ('Broker of championship rings.' Now that's gotta be a niche profession.)

Getting his mitts on the one original ring wasn't enough for Spina.

When Spina obtained the player ring, he also received the information that allowed the former player to purchase Super Bowl rings for family and friends that are slightly smaller than the player rings.

“Spina then called the Ring Company, fraudulently identified himself as [the former player], and started ordering three family and friend Super Bowl LI rings with the name ‘Brady’ engraved on each one, which he falsely represented were gifts for the baby of quarterback Tom Brady,” according to court documents. “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 entered into an agreement with the Orange County man who purchased the player’s Super Bowl ring to sell him the three family rings that Spina now claimed Brady had given to his nephews. After agreeing to buy the three rings for $81,500 – nearly three times what Spina paid for the rings – the buyer started to believe that Brady did not have nephews, and he tried to withdraw from the deal.

The same day that the buyer tried to back out, and the same day that Spina received the rings in November 2017, Spina immediately sold them to an auction house for $100,000. During an auction in February 2018, one of the family rings was sold for $337,219. (Source: US Department of Justice)

There is so much to unpack here. But the biggest unpack is the halo effect of having the name "Brady" engraved on the ring. And that someone was willing to pay $337,219 for a ring that they believed Tom Brady had purchased for a nephew (that he may or may not have). 

Not that I haven't spent money on studip thangs. But all that money for a ring that was NOT the one that had been given to Tom Brady, or any other member of the winning Super Bowl team, but was a lesser version of the ring that Brady supposedly purchased for a family member?

Wow. Just wow.

Maroons are everywhere, I guess. 

And speaking of maroons, Spina will be doing three years in a federal pen for this escapade. 

Spina admitted in his plea agreement that he defrauded the Orange County ring broker when he falsely claimed that the rings “were ordered for Tom Brady directly from [the Ring Company] for select family members.” Spina also admitted that he defrauded this victim in relation to three wire transfers for the deposit on the family rings. Spina further admitted he committed identity theft when he posed as the former Patriot to purchase the rings.

He's also been ordered to pay the anonymous Patriots' player $63K in restitution.  

The crazy thing people go to prison for.