Former employee sentenced after defrauding NESN of $500K for cars, private plane

A federal judge in Boston sentenced a Connecticut man to three and a half years in prison Tuesday for allegedly scamming his former employer, New England Sports Network, out of more than $500,000.

In November, Ariel Legassa, 52, was convicted of seven counts of mail fraud and three counts of unlawful monetary transactions following a five-day jury trial. 

In 2021, Legassa established a contact with a New York company to provide web development services for NESN, and also created a fake business under the same name as the new vendor in order to receive fraudulent payments from the cable network, according to a release from Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy’s office.

Over the course of the contract, he allegedly approved 11 fake invoices from the New York Company, in addition to legitimate ones.

Legassa used the more than $500,000 in fraudulent payments to pay for personal expenses, including credit cards bills, a private plane, a Tesla, a BMW and a Land Rover, while also transferring funds into other accounts under his control, prosecutors said.

In addition to three and a half years in prison, Legassa must pay restitution and forfeiture of $580,000 and a $1,000 special assessment, and receive three years of supervised release after his prison term, Levy’s office noted.

“This was brazen fraud driven by the defendant’s greed,” Levy said in a statement. “Mr. Legassa violated the faith NESN placed in him as a senior executive to circumvent the company’s internal controls and line his own pocket. This type of criminal conduct is not just about the stolen money. The abuse of trust inherent in these types of sophisticated white collar schemes leaves a trail of victims.”

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