Promoter pleads guilty in UH Stevie Wonder concert scam
DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARADVERTISER.COM
Marc Hubbard walked into Federal Court this morning before pleading guilty. Hubbard, 47, of North Carolina, faces a maximum 20-year prison term at sentencing in February.
The man accused of scamming the University of Hawaii out of $200,000 for a Stevie Wonder concert to benefit the school’s athletic department pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court this morning to wire fraud.
Marc Hubbard, 47, of North Carolina, faces a maximum 20-year prison term at sentencing in February.
“First, I would like to apologize to the court for my actions,” Hubbard said then added that his mistake was helping co-defendant Sean Barriero, who previously pleaded guilty to wire fraud.
Hubbard admitted that he duped UH officials into forking over the $200,000 and scammed a UH supporter out of $50,000. The money was supposed to be used to secure Wonder for an August 2012 concert. After UH publicly announced the concert and started selling tickets, a Wonder representative contacted UH and told school officials that there was not going to be a concert because Wonder didn’t authorize or know about it and didn’t get any of the school’s money.
Barriero, 48, a British citizen living in Miami, Florida who was a go-between on the deal, pleaded guilty in 2012 to transferring UH’s stolen $200,000 and agreed to cooperate with the government against Hubbard. He faces sentencing on the same day as Hubbard and faces a maximum 10-year prison term.
A special state Senate committee that investigated the university’s handling of the bungled concert said the incident tarnished the university’s reputation.
The committee said no one at the university looked into whether the agent was an authorized representative of the singer. They also faulted a lack of oversight and communication in the school’s athletics department, general counsel and disbursing office.
“The University of Hawaii thanks the responsible law enforcement officials and prosecutors for their hard work in successfully closing this case,” said university spokesman Dan Meisenzahl.
A University of Hawaii task force reporting to the Board of Regents said the school allowed itself to be deceived because those involved in the financial transactions lacked judgment and didn’t take responsibility.
The university reassigned athletic director Jim Donovan after the failed concert came to light. Donovan later left the university.
As part of a plea deal, prosecutors will recommend that Hubbard’s sentence run concurrently with the sentence he receives for a similar case in Pennsylvania.
He is scheduled to be sentenced in Pennsylvania next week.
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The Associated Press contributed to this story.
16 responses to “Promoter pleads guilty in UH Stevie Wonder concert scam”
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But what about the UH officials who signed off on the deal? Should they not have checked and double checked?
They are just as guilty. The taxpayer costs were over a million with all of the hack lawyers involved in the investigations and the various job changes. So we give him 2o year and then the taxpayer can spend $70K a year for his incarceration for a preventable crime, if only one person in the chain of events had said this doesn’t pass the smell test.
Nobody had responsibility for due diligence!
Water under the bridge. They screwed up but its over.
They were so gullible and negligent, it was simple.
What about the UH supporter? He got involved and convinced UH to go ahead with this concert.
If there is no chance of recovering it he should be made to trash pickup around the campus at $.50 per hour under prison work release – until every penny is paid back.
Along with the UH Gullibles who had Stevie Stars in their eyes.
Don’t you mean the Basket of Deplorables?…….there must of been more than one UH employee in on this tragic turn of events?
I still hear the sucking sound from my taxpayer wallet, “I just called to say I love you”.
What can you expect from UH.
UH officials have no accountability. If it sounds good then it’s a deal. Let’s shake on it.
“the incident tarnished the university’s reputation.” … tarnished by the University’s High Officials
that is.
throw him in jail for the full 20 years!
Who was the UH supporter that got scammed ? What a dufus. This scam has cost the tax payer way more than $ 2000,000 with all the lawyers costs and other rip offs,
Who knows ?
A con that Better Call Saul would be proud of.
The real crime was spending over $1,000,000 to find out why UH got scammed out of $200,000! I want to know who is going to jail for making the $1,000,000 decision?