NEW YORK — A former half proprietor of the Minnesota Vikings who defrauded a short-lived skilled soccer league often called the Alliance of American Football in a $700 million cryptocurrency rip-off was sentenced Monday to over six years in jail.

Reginald Fowler, 64, of Chandler, Arizona, was sentenced in Manhattan federal court docket to 6 years and three months in jail and was ordered to forfeit $740 million and pay restitution of $53 million.

The Alliance of American Football met a speedy finish in 2019 when it ran out of cash.

Prosecutors stated Fowler lied to the league’s executives when he claimed to manage financial institution accounts with tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} from actual property investments and authorities contracts that he might use to help the league.

In 2005, he tried to purchase the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings, changing into a minority proprietor earlier than his involvement within the staff led to 2014.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams stated in an announcement that Fowler broke the regulation by processing lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} of unregulated transactions on behalf of cryptocurrency exchanges that have been used as a shadow financial institution.

“He did so by lying to legitimate U.S. financial institutions, which exposed the U.S. financial system to serious risk,” Williams stated. “He then victimized a professional football league by lying about his net worth in exchange for a substantial portion of the league.”

In a sentencing submission, protection lawyer Edward Sapone wrote that Fowler was heartbroken that he let himself interact in crimes after over six a long time of extraordinary contributions to household and neighborhood.

“Reggie is extremely remorseful,” Sapone wrote. “The American Football League didn’t benefit from the investment that Reggie had planned to make. Reggie’s bank accounts were frozen, he could not secure the investment money, and he was not able to invest the large sum of money he promised to invest.”

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