NEW YORK — A Georgia businessman was found guilty Friday of scam former NBA star Dwight Howard y Chandler Parsons for $8 million after a trial in federal court in Manhattan.
The jury returned its verdict against Calvin Darden Jr. eight years after Darden was sentenced to a year in prison for impersonating his successful father in a failed attempt to buy Maxim magazine. In that case, Darden won clemency by cooperating with prosecutors against other defendants in the case.
This time, however, Darden rejected two government offers to plead guilty and went to trial.
Dwight Howardan eight-time All-Star, three-time Defensive Player of the Year and one of the NBA’s most dominant centers during the prime of his 18-year professional career, testified during the trial that he was defrauded of $7 million. Howard played for seven franchises, including Orlando Magic (who chose him with the first overall pick in the 2004 draft) and Los Angeles Lakerswhere he won his only NBA title during the pandemic-affected 2019-20 season.
During his testimony, Dwight Howard He said Darden tricked him into giving him $7 million by convincing him it was an investment in the purchase of a women’s basketball franchise. When asked by a prosecutor if he received anything in return for his $7 million, Howard testified that he received “a slap in the face.”
Prosecutors said Darden teamed up with a sports agent to deceive Chandler Parsons to send a million dollars that was supposed to help the development of James Wisemanwho currently plays in the NBA.
After Darden’s conviction on all charges, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Meade sought to have Darden immediately detained, saying he had not learned his lesson since the 2016 case, when he cooperated before sentencing and received leniency.
He also said Darden had been convicted three times of multimillion-dollar fraud and that prosecutors believe he will face between 11 and 14 years in prison when he is sentenced early next year.
Meade said the government planned to seize all of Darden’s assets, including his Atlanta home, along with luxury cars, art and jewelry purchased with money obtained through the fraud.
Judge Vernon S. Broderick said Darden can remain free on bail after his attorney insisted he is no longer in danger of committing further fraud, and that he is needed by his family, including his prominent father, who is ill.
Darden’s father, Cal Darden, is a former senior vice president of operations at Atlanta-based United Parcel Service Inc., who has served on the boards of several major companies.
During closing arguments Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Thompson said the evidence that Darden Jr. “committed these crimes is overwhelming.”
Thompson said Darden Jr. lied about how he would spend money he received from basketball players and then moved the money through multiple accounts to try to launder it.
The prosecutor said Darden Jr. spent at least $6.1 million of the $7 million he received from Dwight Howardincluding $500,000 on two cars; $110,000 on a piano; $765,000 for a down payment on a $3.7 million home; $90,000 on luxury watches and another half a million dollars for home improvements, plus hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on art.
Thompson said he also posed as his father, as he had done in the previous fraud eight years ago, to “take advantage of his father’s good name.”
However, defense attorney Xavier Donaldson argued that his client never posed as his father to the athletes and accused prosecutors of trying to get jurors to use “conjecture, speculation, unreasonable inferences” to reach a guilty verdict. .
