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A former Jaguars employee who stole more than $22 million from the team was apparently not afraid to spend those funds based on new court documents detailing some of his lavish expenditures—including the purchase of a putter that belonged to Tiger Woods.
In 2019, the Jacksonville Jaguars tasked an employee named Amit Patel with keeping tabs on the virtual credit card payments that were used to cover various expenses that come with running an NFL franchise.
He was also the only employee in charge of monitoring those transactions and sending summaries to the team’s accounting department and, well, it’s safe to say he took full advantage of the potential to abuse that kind of power.
Patel worked that job for four years before he was fired in February of 2023 after the Jaguars discovered some discrepancies to the tune of the more than $22 million he managed to embezzle during his time with the team.
The vast majority of those stolen funds were used to fuel his gambling addiction, but he also treated himself to private flights, a Patek Philippe watch, and a country club membership.
That last expenditure wasn’t the only golf-related purchase he made, as ESPN shed some light on documents that were recently filed in the federal court where he’s expected to be sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud and other charges containing a summary of his illicit acquisitions.
The outlet reports Patel dropped $200,000 on “golf memorabilia,” which included the $47,113.92 he spent to acquire the Scotty Cameron that was presented to Tiger Woods after he won the U.S. Amateur Championship for the third time in 1996.
Patel will officially be sentenced on Tuesday during a hearing where he’ll likely be forced to officially forfeit the putter and the many other items he bought with the embezzled money as the Jaguars do what they can to recoup their losses (although they face an uphill battle when you consider FanDuel has declined to reimburse the cash he gambled away to the tune of $20 million).