Josh Macciello, guy supposedly offering $2.2 billion to own Dodgers, is a fraud
Frank McCourt was ordered to sell the Dodgers so MLB has been soliciting and reviewing bids for potential new owners. They are reportedly close to narrowing things down to four finalist groups, none of which include Josh Macciello.
Macciello made headlines after going on a local Los Angeles sports radio show in January and convincing the hosts he was a legitimate player in the ownership talks, one who was ready to bid $2.2 billion on the team. He did newspaper interviews, took phone calls from fans on the radio, and was selling himself as a legitimate bidder for the team. He said he had over $2 billion in cash ready to bid on the team, money that came from a gold mine appraisal.
LA Weekly did plenty of investigation over Macciello’s claims, including talking with him, and they’ve concluded he was nothing but a fast-talking fraud.
LA Weekly’s investigation tells them Macciello’s supposed billion dollar gold appraisal was not an appraisal. Turns out it was a report done for a defunct company called Golden Oasis, and the report was commissioned to determine if the gold in the ground (not a mine) would be worth mining based on costs.
After LA Weekly tried to verify Macciello’s information about the mines, he told them he had sold the mines. He ordered LA Weekly to stop contacting him and involved his lawyer in a cease and desist email. The lawyer was helping Macciello put together a bid for the Dodgers and later realized it was foolish to have as much faith in Macciello as he did.
When confronted with the story, Macciello did what he has done many times in the past month — he blamed the media. This time he’s blaming LA Weekly.
“I have nothing. My whole financing got pulled. I have no means, nothing,” he says. “I’m the Roy Hobbs of this deal. I came out of nowhere. Then an L.A. Weekly reporter ruined that. … We’re starting to put a case together. You cost me $2.2 billion.”
We come across frauds like this all too frequently, and it’s sad. When you’re talking about billions of dollars, the phrase “show me the money” was never more applicable.
H/T A. Liu