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Dan Hajducky, ESPN Staff WriterNov 22, 2024, 07:33 PM ET
- Dan Hajducky is a staff writer for ESPN. He has an MFA in creative writing from Fairfield University and played on the men’s soccer teams at Fordham and Southern Connecticut State universities.
Mykalai Kontilai, the broadcast executive-turned-entrepreneur who bought Jackie Robinson’s first major and minor league professional contracts and then used them to launch a sports memorabilia/auction business, pleaded guilty to wire fraud Thursday in Las Vegas.
He will be sentenced Dec. 4 and faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, according to the Department of Justice.
Kontilai, 55, purchased Robinson’s Montreal Royals contract for the 1946 season and Robinson’s 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers contract for $2 million in 2013, subsequently using their purported value to lure investors into his sports memorabilia/auction business called, at various times, Collector’s Café or Collector’s Coffee (“CCI”).
Kontilai then raised more than $23 million and misappropriated $6.1 million to bankroll his own “lavish lifestyle,” manufactured evidence to mislead federal investigators, and “concealed the proceeds of his scheme” from the IRS.
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In mid-2019, Kontilai left the United States amid SEC and DOJ investigations, eventually unsuccessfully claiming asylum in Russia as a whistleblower of American corruption.
In 2020, he was charged in an 18-count indictment in Nevada that included securities fraud, multiple counts of wire fraud, money laundering and failure to file tax returns — and a six-count indictment in Colorado including conspiracy to obstruct proceedings, obstruction of proceedings, tampering with documents and false statements.
In April 2023, Kontilai was arrested in Germany on an Interpol red notice and held at the Stadelheim Prison in Munich for a year. In December, a jury in the Southern District of New York found Kontilai and his company liable for securities fraud in the civil SEC case. In March, the SEC recommended Kontilai and his company pay a combined total of nearly $50 million in penalties.
He was extradited to the United States in May.
Kontilai was facing a maximum sentence of over 300 years combined in Nevada and Colorado, but he and the government entered into an agreement, with him pleading guilty to one count of wire fraud in Nevada and consenting to restitution of $6.1 million.
Kontilai’s SEC case is still unresolved. The court still needs to rule on the SEC’s motion for remedies, which includes requests for disgorgement, civil penalties and injunctive relief. But a recent court date was vacated because “The Holders” — a group of plaintiffs who provided a since defaulted loan with the Robinson contracts as collateral — and the Jackie Robinson Foundation have entered into a settlement in principle.
The potential settlement is contingent on a final written agreement but would potentially see the Jackie Robinson Foundation pay CCI and relinquish their claim to the Montreal Royals contract and receive the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers contract.
The Holders and CCI would receive the 1945 Montreal Royals contract, with settlement funds paid to The Holders and CCI to “relinquish their interest in the 1947 major league contract.”
The settlement payment — “the 1945 contract will be marketed thereafter” — would be distributed as: 24.2% to the SEC for CCI’s interest in the 1945 minor league contract; 72.5% to The Holders; and 3.3% to Goldin Auctions “in satisfaction of funds expended by Goldin Auctions in the prior effort to sell the contracts.”
The Jackie Robinson Foundation would seek a court order stating ownership of the 1947 contract; The Holders would seek a court order on CCI’s ownership of the 1945 contract “only subject to [The Holders] interest.”
