Cops: Con Man Scammed NBA Stars Out of Their Shoes

He told them he was Adele's manager
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 19, 2017 12:01 AM CDT
Cops: Con Man Scammed NBA Stars Out of Their Shoes
Justin Jackson.   (Miami-Dade Corrections)

A Florida con man with a long history of celebrity-related scams managed to trick several NBA stars into giving him their sneakers, police say. Justin Jackson and his wife, Angel Lii, have been charged with felonies including identity theft and conspiracy to defraud, the Miami Herald reports. Police say that in the sneaker scam, Jackson posed as pop star Adele's manager and told numerous NBA stars that he was collecting athletes' sneakers for a celebrity auction and could give them Adele concert tickets in return for their shoes. Paul George, Victor Oladipo, and Richard Hamilton were among those that sent shoes to Jackson, according to court documents.

Court documents state that Jackson also posed as Adele's manager to ask stars including Chris Brown and Katy Perry if they would make a birthday video for a "dear friend," but the effort failed, the Guardian reports. Jackson was arrested in a sting operation after a police officer posing as a production assistant told Jackson (who in this situation was also allegedly pretending to be Adele's manager) that he could get free tickets to see rapper Kendrick Lamar in Miami. Jackson, 30, went to prison for two years after a 2007 scam in which he posed as a Madonna rep to "borrow" $2.4 million worth of jewelry from a boutique. In 2014, he was sued for allegedly posing as Oprah Winfrey's nephew and a Barack Obama aide, among others, to get freebies. (More con man stories.)

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