A man who worked at Sports Basement in San Francisco began a one-year jail sentence last week for stealing $311,118 in goods and shipping expenses and reselling items on eBay.
The man’s fraud scheme took place over a period of more than five years, from January 2018 until July 2023, while he was responsible for shipping and online orders for customers, according to court records. Kent Liew, who began working at the retailer in October 2017, used Sports Basement’s UPS account to ship the stolen merchandise to his customers through a personal eBay store he started before his employment, indictment records show.
Liew shipped at least 1,609 stolen Sports Basement items, amounting to $244,858 in value, to people both in California and out of state while using $52,101 in Sports Basement funds for mailing and shipping expenses, court documents said. Liew also had 310 stolen items at his house, amounting to $14,159, discovered on July 20, 2023, according to court documents.
Court documents also show that though Liew said he was using the funds to pay off $200,000 worth of debt he accumulated from a 2017 “personal business venture,” he also saved and invested the profits. He deposited money from the scheme into a Charles Schwab account, the sentencing memo said, which had $73,888.54 in it as of July 31, 2023.
Liew pleaded guilty to both charges of wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen goods on Feb. 14. He’s been ordered to pay $311,118 in restitution and forfeit the $73,888.54 in the Schwab account.
Though Liew faced up to 27 months in federal prison, he will only serve 12 months and one day. The court agreed on a lesser sentence because Liew has “limited criminal history.” He has prior convictions of theft and burglary but “no prior record of violence or the use or possession of a firearm,” the memo states.
After he is out of custody, Liew will be under three years of supervised release. He is being held in a medium-security federal prison in Herlong, California, about 60 miles from Reno, according to inmate records.
Sports Basement did not respond to SFGATE’s request for comment.
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