White Sox employees charged by FBI for running ticket scheme with broker

Two Chicago White Sox employees and a ticket broker have been charged by the FBI for running an illegal ticket scheme during the 2016-2019 MLB seasons.

An indictment related to the case became public on Friday, and the Chicago Sun-Times shared details of the case.

Former White Sox ticket sellers James Costello, 66, and William O’Neil, 51, are alleged to have collaborated with Bruce Lee, a ticket broker, on the scheme. Costello and O’Neil allegedly used other team employee IDs to generate complimentary tickets that are typically reserved for friends and family of the players, youth groups, commercial sponsors and others, and are not for sale.

Lee allegedly paid Costello, who later recruited O’Neil to participate in the scheme, in exchange for the complimentary tickets. Lee then allegedly sold the tickets on StubHub for low prices, thinking he would avoid detection.

However, the White Sox’s data system flagged Lee as a seller because he had sold so many more tickets than anyone else. He allegedly sold over 11,000 White Sox tickets on StubHub in 2018, while the next highest seller sold 129 tickets.

Lee is alleged to have sold 34,876 White Sox tickets from 2016-2019, generating $868,369 in revenue.

The White Sox alerted the FBI when they realized what must have been going on.