TAMPA, FL - JUN 09: Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady (12) speaks to the media after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Minicamp on June 09, 2022 at the AdventHealth Training Center at One Buccaneer Place in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon SANTA ANA, Calif. - A New Jersey man who posed as a former New England Patriots player in order to buy and sell Super Bowl rings that he claimed were gifts to Tom Brady’s family was sentenced Monday to three years in federal prison.Scott V.
Spina Jr., 25, of Roseland was sentenced by a judge in Southern California's Orange County.In 2017, Spina bought a Patriots’ 2016 Super Bowl championship ring from a Patriots player who then left the team.
Prosecutors said Spina paid the player — identified only as T.J. — with at least one bad check and sold the ring for $63,000 to an Orange County broker of championship rings."When Spina obtained the player ring, he also received the information that allowed the former player to purchase Super Bowl rings for family and friends that are slightly smaller than the player rings," the U.S.
attorney's office said in a statement.Spina then called the company that made the rings, claimed to be the former player and ordered three family-and-friend rings with "Brady" engraved on them, claiming they were gifts for Brady’s baby, prosecutors said.MORE SPORTS HEADLINES"The rings were at no time authorized by Tom Brady," according to the criminal complaint.Spina agreed to sell the rings for $81,500 to the same Orange County broker who bought the original ring, contending that Brady had given them to his nephews.