Hartford Man Sentenced to Nearly 4 Years’ Imprisonment and Ordered to Pay $5M for Operating a Fraudulent Ticket Re-Selling Scheme

MIAMI - Jeffrey Thurn was sentenced yesterday by Senior U.S. District Judge Federico A. Moreno to 46 months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release. Thurn was also ordered to pay approximately $5.1 million in restitution after previously pleading guilty to running a fraudulent ticket re-selling scheme.

According to court record, to include the factual proffer in support of the defendant's guilty plea, Thurn, 39, of Hartford, South Dakota, enticed victims to send him more than $5,000,000 for a purported ticket re-selling business he operated through the fictitious business name Backstage Tickets. Thurn promised to buy tickets using victim funds and then re-sell the tickets for a profit. Thurn made certain representations, including a guarantee that a certain amount of profit needed to be generated before he could earn any fee, and a representation that investor funds would be refunded to the investor in the event that an event was cancelled or changed to a different date. To legitimize prior sales completed by Thurn on behalf of investors, and to entice investors to send additional funds for new events, once a set of event tickets were purportedly re-sold by Thurn, he provided his investors fake and fraudulent receipts from various third-party ticket re-selling outlets as proof that he completed ticket sales. In truth, Thurn fabricated the receipts and the ticket sales never happened.

As agreed to by Thurn in his factual proffer, the $5,000,000 he raised from investors was used for his personal benefit.

U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the Southern District of Florida, and Jeffrey B. Veltri, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Miami Field Office, made the announcement.

FBI Miami Field Office investigated this matter. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger Cruz.

Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or at http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov under case number 23-cr-20481.

###