Are you sick to death of the seemingly neverending battle between the Chicago Cubs and the owners of rooftop clubs outside of Wrigley Field?
The war between the two entities is still raging on, but it took an interesting turn this week – one of the rooftop owners was indicted on four counts of mail fraud after allegedly cooking the books to avoid paying the Cubs $600,000 owed to them.
Redeye Chicago has some of the details.
The owner of a rooftop club across the street from Wrigley Field has been indicted on federal fraud charges for not paying about $600,000 owed to the Cubs as well as state and local taxing bodies, the U.S. attorney’s office announced Friday.
R. Marc Hamid, 46, is accused of under-reporting attendance and revenue at the Skybox on Sheffield between 2008 and 2011, according to an indictment handed down Thursday.
[…]
Skybox on Sheffield falsely reported that it had 200 or fewer attendees at certain events when more than 200 people had attended, making it appear that the club complied with ordinances limiting the number of people per event, according to the indictment.
Hamid also submitted false sales tax returns to the state of Illinois and amusement tax returns to Cook County and the city of Chicago for those years. In all, he made $1.5 million more than he reported, the indictment states.
Hamid could be sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in prison for each charge along with a fine of $250,000 or twice the loss or gain (whichever is greater).
This situation illustrates why the Cubs shouldn’t bow to the rooftop owners so quickly. Who knows how many more times situations like this have gone on over the years? The Cubs are a moneymaking factory, but if they’re getting screwed out of cash by the people that are supposed to be working with them, I’d be hostile towards the rooftop owners too.
