James C. Duckett Jr., whose promise to bring professional soccer to Hartford was tainted by financial crimes, was sentenced Wednesday to 36 months in prison for looting hundreds of thousands of dollars in city funds.
The prison term, handed down in Bridgeport federal court, brings to a close a scandal that has spanned more than two years and cast a long shadow over city hall. In the process, two Hartford development officials lost their jobs, a soccer team disbanded and the future of a once-prominent city landmark was thrown into turmoil.
Duckett, a one-time Somers businessman who built a sports consulting group, and his former partner, Mitchell Anderson, were convicted this year of wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy charges related to the failed redevelopment of Hartford’s Dillon Stadium. Anderson pleaded guilty in February and is awaiting sentencing. Duckett was convicted by a jury in July of 12 of his 13 corruption-related counts.
Prosecutors said the pair conspired to steal city money, first by diverting funds that were supposed to go to subcontractors, and later by submitting invoices for work that was never done. A hearing will be held to decide what restitution Duckett must pay as part of his sentencing. He must report to an undisclosed federal institution on Jan. 31.
“The result of the offense has been a very substantial and painful financial loss to the city of Hartford, which cannot afford that,” Judge Stefan R. Underhill said Wednesday. “This stadium project was a symbol of hope for a city that needs a lot of symbols of hope, and a lot of hopes were dashed when the project fell through.”
Duckett said he felt badly that his actions hurt people in Hartford, but that he never intended to steal money.
“All I did was trust the wrong individuals, and being in that situation is a valuable, valuable lesson to learn,” he said. “I’ve learned it. … I’m guilty of trusting.”
Duckett’s attorney, Richard Brown, said he is planning to file an appeal.
In 2015, Anderson and Duckett persuaded city leaders with their ambitious but ultimately doomed plan to redevelop Dillon Stadium in Colt Park. They envisioned a $30 million to $50 million state-of-the-art arena that would impress motorists passing on the highway.
Anderson had won a bid a year earlier to develop the stadium, backed by $12 million in city funds, into a 15,000-seat venue where a new professional soccer team would play.
Anderson’s contract with the city gave him six months to attract a team. As that deadline approached, he was introduced to Duckett, who claimed to be a former NFL player with the means to become majority owner of the soccer club. The men made plans to merge Anderson’s company, Premier Sports Management Group, with Duckett’s firm, Black Diamond Consulting Group, which he ran out of his rented home in Somers.
In late March 2015, after joining forces with Anderson, Duckett told officials at city hall that he wasn’t interested in Hartford’s $12 million, and instead planned to privately finance a much larger stadium. He offered to cover construction costs for the arena and pay the city to lease the land. Hartford leaders were elated.
But city officials, who had been paying Premier Sports for work done by subcontractors, continued to cut checks to Anderson.
In the months that followed, Anderson’s company made numerous wire transfers and wrote several checks to Duckett amounting to half a million dollars. Much of that money had been paid to Anderson by the city of Hartford, and was intended for subcontractors. The project also received $400,000 from two private investors.
Brown has said the payments to his client were compensation for work, and that Anderson — over his head and under pressure to secure a professional soccer team — continued paying Duckett solely “in the hopes that this guy could clean up his mess” and keep Anderson from losing his contract with the city.
The government painted a different picture, describing Duckett as a slick con artist who deceived those around him to pocket half a million dollars in city funds.
In addition to the hundreds of thousands sent from Premier Sports’ bank accounts to Duckett, more money went to companies Duckett claimed were ready to invest tens of millions of dollars to build the new stadium. Some of that money came from the city and was supposed to be passed on to subcontractors. But the bulk of it came from Hartford’s payment of invoices for work that was never done.
Premier Sports submitted three invoices, totaling $1 million, from a company called Big Span Structures, which Duckett brought on to build a multimillion-dollar fabric roof for the stadium. The president of Big Span, Rick Laxton, testified at Duckett’s trial that the invoices were to be paid only if Premier hired Big Span for the job, which never happened. And some of the work covered by the invoices wasn’t even related to Dillon.
Anderson, who testified against his former partner at trial, said he told Duckett that he was concerned about the propriety of submitting the invoices to the city, but that Duckett told him to do it anyway.
Prosecutors on Wednesday had sought a higher sentence of 60 months, arguing that the crime was sophisticated.
“Mr. Duckett’s takeaway from all of this is that, ‘I’m guilty of trusting,’” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Karwan said. “That’s his takeaway from this case. … There is no self realization as to what’s going on. He didn’t trust the wrong people, people trusted him.”
The scandal came to light after The Courant reported in October 2015 that Duckett had an embezzlement conviction and a string of unpaid legal judgments in multiple states. City leaders declared days later that they had been overbilled by the developers, and federal officials launched a grand jury investigation.
The Courant also reported on financial irregularities that arose during the project.
City officials, who had been considering a 49-year lease with Duckett, abruptly withdrew from the deal. Development Director Thomas Deller resigned amid the controversy, and project manager Stephen Cole lost his job a short time later.
Hartford City FC, the new team that was scheduled to play at the XL Center while Dillon Stadium was being rebuilt, was dropped from the Major Arena Soccer League’s roster after the grand jury convened. The team was resurrected a year later in the National Premier Soccer League, a fourth-tier league. It now plays in New Britain.
After two years of dormancy, city and state leaders recently issued a new call for developers to renovate Dillon Stadium. A state panel announced last week that it would support a Woodbridge businessman for the job. City officials are still hoping to attract professional soccer to Hartford.
Source: The Hartford Courant