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A father and son pleaded guilty to several crimes in a Manhattan federal court Wednesday, centering on a scheme they ran around developing a sports complex in Arizona.
Randy Miller, 70, and his 41-year-old son, Chad, entered guilty pleas to security fraud and aggravated identity theft in federal court after conning some of the country’s biggest investment firms for a facility that ultimately cost municipal bondholders more than $280 million. The Millers’ victims included Vanguard, AllianceBernstein Holding LP, and Macquarie Group’s Delaware Funds, among others.
In April, the Millers were charged with using fabricated letters of intent and fake pre-contracts to claim that multiple organizations, including soccer clubs Manchester United and a youth affiliate of Real Salt Lake, had agreed to use the park in Mesa, Ariz. Both teams denied signing with the Millers.
Prosecutors agreed not to contest a sentence of less than seven years and a fine of $40,000 to $400,000 as part of the Millers’ plea agreement. The pair will owe a combined $13 million in judgments as part of their deal with prosecutors.
For years, the father-son duo had failed to secure financing for their 320-acre complex, which had fields for baseball and soccer, among other sports. They eventually got it through revenue-backed municipal bonds from the Arizona Industrial Development Authority, which allowed them to avoid the regulations that come with corporate bonds.
“The defendants promptly converted at least hundreds of thousands of dollars of the bond proceeds to their personal use, such as a home, automobiles, and increased salaries,” a federal indictment from April says.
The complex was short-lived as a business that opened in January 2022 and defaulted nine months later after failing to cover a single bond payment. The Millers’ nonprofit filed for bankruptcy in May 2023 and cited construction and supply-chain delays in addition to labor shortages as factors in the park’s demise.
In October, Legacy Park sold for $26 million, with bondholders receiving $2.4 million and an 11% equity stake in AZ Athletic Associates LLC, a co-venture from the complex’s new president Mike Burke and Rocky Mountain Resources, a private company that owns and operates several sports infrastructure assets.
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