Sports CEO Timothy Leiweke charged in Texas arena bid-rigging scheme | US crime
An eminent sports leader was criminally responsible for organizing a conspiracy to ensure that his own business won the attempt to build a sports arena of $ 388 million in Texas.
Timothy Leiweke, former president of the Denver Nuggets basketball team and former CEO of MLSE, who has the main sports franchises in Toronto, including Leafs and Raptors, was charged Wednesday by a large federal jury. He resigned from his post as director general of the company at the center of the case, Oak View Group (OVG), after the announcement.
Leiweke spokesperson, 68, published a statement by arguing that he had “done nothing wrong and will not defend themselves vigorously and his well-deserved reputation for equity and integrity”.
Investigators allege that Leiweke spent a period from February 2018 to at least June 2024 in conspiracy with a CEO of a competitor to “fake the call for tenders for the development, management and use” of the Moody Center, at the University of Texas in Austin.
Leiweke would have concluded an agreement that the rival firm would have agreed to avoid the auctions on the Moody Center in exchange for OVG providing it with the subcontracts of the project.
OVG then built the building after submitting the only offer and the Moody Center opened in 2022. The company “continues to receive major projects from the project to date,” the US justice ministry said in a statement.
Leiweke could incur up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $ 1 million or more if it is found guilty.
A statement by Abigail Slater, deputy prosecutor of the antitrust division of the Ministry of Justice, accused Leiweke of having “deprived a public university and taxpayers of the advantages of competitive auctions” to stimulate the results of his business. She said that federal officials were still trying to “hold executives who cheat to avoid responsible competition”.
Christopher Raia of the FBI said in a press release that “public contracts are subject to laws requiring an open and competitive tender process to guarantee fair playground”, adding: “The FBI is determined to ensure that those who do not take into account the principles of fair competition do not benefit from a rigged call for calling our communities and our public institutions.”
Leiweke was President of Nuggets from 1991 to 1995 before becoming CEO of Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), whose assets include the Hockey team from Los Angeles Kings and the Los Angeles Galaxy Soccer Club. After leaving the AEG in 2013, he was CEO and president of MLSE, based in Canada, whose assets include the main sports franchises in Toronto. He co -founded OVG, based in Denver, and became his CEO in 2015.
Among the next OVG construction projects, there was a new arena at the Louisiana State University (LSU). University officials would have told the Advocate newspaper that they were examining how accusations against Leiweke could affect the New Arena project.
