If you thought the Cleveland Browns have been stealing money from the fans of Cleveland over the years, well they were probably just trying to make up for the money they were losing to their own employees. On Thursday, a former Browns employee was indicted by a grand jury for allegedly embezzling at least $88,000 from the NFL franchise.
The former employee in question is Justin Smith, a former Browns ticket office staff member. The 26-year old pleaded not guilty to fourth-degree felony charges of grand theft. He is accused of stealing from the Browns over the course of the last eight months, siphoning money from funds from personal seat licenses.
The Sporting News broke down how the embezzling scheme is believed to have played out;
According to a Berea (Ohio) police report, Smith allegedly made refunds from one PSL account, transferred that money to another account and then conducted a refund to one of his five credit cards, with a total of 46 transactions. The alleged theft reportedly took place between April of 2015 through January, when Smith was fired.
Smith is believed to have acted alone in this scheme, although he is the second member of the Browns organization to be accused of embezzling while employed by the team. Former Brown Reggie Rucker was also found to have been taking a little bit of extra cash during his tenure with the Browns, but he was taking money from the team’s anti-violence organizations.
There is no truth to the rumors the same grand jury is charging Johnny Manziel for stealing money from the Cleveland Browns at this time.
