St. Louis, MO - Darrin Landes was sentenced to 30 months imprisonment on wire fraud charges and violation of his supervised release, both of which involved Landes’ scheme to sell sporting event tickets, but not delivering them to the purchasers after they sent payment to him.
According to court documents, from September 2015 to July 2016, Landes offered to sell tickets to sporting and entertainment events, including the 2016 Kentucky Derby, the 2016 Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia, and St. Louis Cardinals games. On some occasions, he offered to sell accommodations at hotels, resorts, and/or homes. He frequently did not have tickets to sell to these prospective purchasers, and when he did have one ticket to an event, he attempted to sell the same ticket to someone else.
Landes and the prospective purchasers discussed the price for these tickets through face-to-face conversations, emails, texts and/or telephone conversations. The purchasers agreed to pay Landes and upon receipt of payment Landes would send them the purchased items. Landes instructed the purchasers to send payment to him by wire transaction to either his PayPal account, one of his alleged business acquaintance’s PayPal account, or on some occasions he met with the purchaser and obtained the money for the items he was selling. After the purchasers sent money to Landes and they did not receive the items that they paid for, and attempted to contact Landes, he offered some excuse for the delay in sending the purchased item.
Landes, Ballwin, MO, pled guilty last September to one felony count of wire fraud. He appeared today for sentencing before United States District Judge Rodney Sippel. Landes was also on supervised release for a 2014 wire fraud conviction. Today, the Court revoked his supervised release.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Kirkwood Police Department. Assistant United States Attorney Anthony Franks handled the case for the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
