Shortchanging Cubs Gets Lawyer Disbarred
A sanction noticed on the web page of the Illinois Supreme Court
In re R. MARC HAMID, Attorney Number 6230966
6548 North Christiana Avenue
Lincolnwood, Illinois 60712-3812
File Information: M.R. 28351, 2016PR00118
Mr. Hamid, who was licensed in 1996, was disbarred on consent. Following a nine-day trial, a federal jury found him guilty of mail fraud and currency structuring. He owned and controlled Right Field Rooftops, a business which sold tickets to watch Chicago Cubs games from a rooftop outside of Wrigley Field. Right Field Rooftops was party to a contract with the Cubs that required it to annually report its attendance and gross revenues to the team and to pay it 17% of its gross revenues. From 2008 through 2011, Mr. Hamid intentionally caused Right Field Rooftops to underreport revenue and attendance and, as a result, Right Field Rooftops underpaid the team amounts due under the royalty agreement.
The Chicago Tribune reported on the criminal case.
Hamid was the longtime owner of Skybox on Sheffield, a rooftop club beyond the right field wall, as well as two ticket brokerages called Just Great Seats and Just Great Tickets.
From 2008 to 2011, Hamid under-reported attendance and revenue at Skybox on Sheffield through a variety of schemes, including “zeroing out” invoices and charging customers through one of his brokerages instead of the rooftop business itself, according to the charges. The phony numbers meant the Cubs did not get as much in royalty payments as they should have under terms of the rooftop owners’ agreement with the team.
According to prosecutors, Hamid then submitted false sales tax returns to the state of Illinois and amusement tax returns to Cook County and the city of Chicago for those years, failing to report about $1.5 million in sales. Hamid allegedly used some of the unreported money for personal and business expenses, including payments on luxury cars.
At the trial, Gair argued that Hamid was simply a bad businessman who had hired sloppy bookkeepers, not someone who orchestrated a fraud scheme.
Gair also accused several witnesses of lying, including former Skybox on Sheffield manager Richard Zasiebida, a former Oak Park cop who admitted on the witness stand he’d abused alcohol and cocaine and pocketed cash at the door from fans who wanted a seat for the game.
Zasiebida, who has pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme and is awaiting sentencing, is a man who “lies to get what he wants,” Gair said in his closing argument Thursday.
“And what does he want? He wants to skate. He wants to avoid going to jail,” Gair said.
But prosecutors presented emails, bank statements, game day records and other evidence that they said showed what Hamid did wasn’t a simple mistake — it was greed.
This wasn’t an accident,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Barry Jonas said in his closing remarks to the jury. “This was a deliberate scheme that went on for four years. … By diverting the funds, he cheated the Cubs, he cheated the city and the county, and he put more money in his pocket.”
Prosecutors also presented evidence of the bad blood between the Cubs and rooftop owners, a tense situation that had escalated after the Ricketts family bought the team in 2009.
(Mike Frisch)