Guilty plea forced, says ‘Wonder Blunder’ figure

The central figure in the “Wonder Blunder” concert fraud wants to withdraw his guilty plea because he claims the government forced him to plead guilty and that his co-defendant is behind the scam.

Marc Hubbard, 50, a former North Carolina nightclub owner and self-styled concert promoter, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in October 2016 to wire fraud. He was supposed to get sentenced four months later but got it rescheduled five times. The latest was for Feb. 22.

Hubbard informed the court one day before the sentencing date that he wanted to withdraw his guilty plea. This was after U.S. District Judge Leslie E. Kobayashi denied his request to question his co-defendant Sean Barriero during the sentencing hearing.

Barriero, 50, pleaded guilty before Hubbard and agreed to cooperate with the government.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Marc Wallenstein reminded Hubbard in court last week that the government only promised to ask the court to let him serve his Hawaii and Pennsylvania federal sentences at the same time as part of his plea agreement.

Hubbard claims that federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania, where he already had pleaded guilty to bilking $2.1 million from three “investors” in a concert promotion scam, threatened to reveal his cooperation with the FBI against one of the three investors in a different matter if he did not also plead guilty in the Stevie Wonder concert scam in Hawaii.

He also claims that he was only trying to help Barriero book Stevie Wonder for a concert to benefit the University of Hawaii athletic department and that Barriero lied about his own role in the scam to the FBI.

Hubbard originally had filed his request to withdraw his guilty plea under seal for fear of reprisal from the one investor in the Pennsylvania case and the investor’s associates. But he already had revealed that information in detail in a document he filed not under seal in support of his request for bail pending appeal in the Philadelphia case.

Hubbard is serving a 6-1/2-year prison term in the Philadelphia case. One appeals court already rejected Hubbard’s appeal in January.

In the Hawaii case, Hubbard admitted in his change-of-plea hearing that he lied to Barriero about his ability to book Wonder for a concert and that Barriero relied on those lies to convince a UH supporter and the school to cough up $250,000, which they never got back.