The federal prosecutor in the “Wonder Blunder” case wants to submit as trial evidence to a jury the alleged scammer’s guilty plea in a similar case in Pennsylvania.
Marc Hubbard, 47, is awaiting trial in U.S. District Court for allegedly swindling the University of Hawaii out of $200,000 and a UH supporter out of $50,000 in 2012 by promising to deliver Stevie Wonder for a concert to benefit the school’s athletic department. Hubbard never delivered Wonder, and the concert never happened. Trial is scheduled for November.
In June, Hubbard pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia to charges that he and a co-defendant lied and presented phony bank and other financial documents to persuade three people to give them more than $2.1 million between 2008 and 2010. The co-defendant, former Washington, D.C., lawyer Herbert Franklin Green, pleaded guilty in July.
The money was supposed to be investments in concerts by Alicia Keys, Lil Wayne and Beyonce that Hubbard told his victims he was promoting, with a promised rate of return of 15 percent to 30 percent. Hubbard had falsely told one of his victims that he had successfully co-promoted a 2009 concert by Jay Z and showed the victim a fake audit of ticket sales for a November 2009 concert by R Kelly.
Instead of using the money for concert promotions, Hubbard and Green pocketed it, with Hubbard getting about $1.8 million and Green, $333,000. The rest went back to the victims as phony returns on their investments.
Green’s sentencing is scheduled for October. Hubbard’s is Thursday, though he is asking to reschedule it.
Hubbard is already serving a five-year probation sentence after pleading guilty in a South Carolina state court in June to a breach of trust charge involving one of the victims in the Philadelphia federal case. Hubbard admitted spending at least some of the money the victim gave him on personal expenses, instead of investing it on concert promotion as he promised.
The South Carolina prosecutor says the victim gave Hubbard $2.2 million in 2007 and 2008. The money was supposed to go toward promoting concerts including one by Alicia Keys and a concert tour by Lil Wayne. The prosecutor says Hubbard returned about one-third of the money that he received from the victim.
U.S. District Judge Leslie E. Kobayashi ruled in September 2015 that the prosecutor in the Wonder case can tell the jury about the South Carolina case. She also ruled that the prosecutor can introduce into trial the facts and circumstances of the Philadelphia case but not that Hubbard had been indicted. That was before Hubbard pleaded guilty.
In light of the guilty pleas the prosecutor wants to tell the jury about the indictment and Hubbard’s admissions. A hearing on the request is scheduled for next month.
