A Yorktown Heights investment adviser has been arraigned for embezzling funds from a minor league baseball player.
Jesus Mesa pleaded guilty on Aug. 3 to a charge of interstate transportation of stolen property, before U.S. Magistrate Judge Judith C. McCarthy in White Plains federal court.
Mesa told investigators that he had worked with Major League Baseball players as a concierge, according to court papers. In 2017 he incorporated Clubhouse Management Group LLC, Tarrytown, and opened a business account at a Yonkers bank.
The baseball player, who is not named in the court records, told FBI agent Steven J. Manganelli that he had made a deal with another company to give up a portion of anticipated future payments on his baseball contract in exchange for $250,000.
The company, also not identified in court papers, told the player that the $250,000 payment was taxable.
The player had retained Mesa as his financial adviser, according to the FBI agent’s criminal complaint affidavit, and Mesa said he would make the payment to the Internal Revenue Service.
The player’s father wired three payments totaling $77,000 to Clubhouse Management Group, in May and June 2017.
Three years later, in June 2020, the IRS demanded $79,000 in taxes and interest from the baseball player.
Last year the FBI reviewed the Clubhouse bank account and verified the wire transfers from the player’s father but found no evidence of a payment to the IRS.
Instead, bank records show that Mesa spent the funds on travel, restaurants, cash withdrawals, furniture and more.
Mesa admitted to FBI agents that he had not paid the player’s tax bill, according to Manganelli’s affidavit, and said he loaned the money to other players. According to the charging document, Mesa wired $10,000 from the player’s funds to another client in Georgia.
Mesa is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 16 by U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Karas.
