Scams send con man to prison

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, October 4, 2006

Eddie William Rivera sometimes made himself out to be a Major League Baseball promoter and player-manager with connections to the Seattle Mariners.

Another time, he told a Seattle man he was a lawyer and would file a lawsuit in Utah to get money back from an ill-fated movie investment.

He’s neither.

Snohomish County prosecutors and sheriff’s detectives call him a con man.

Rivera, 34, who formerly lived in Mukilteo and Edmonds, was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison after he pleaded guilty in August to seven counts of first-degree theft.

Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Anita Farris also required Rivera to pay $273,500 restitution to three individuals, a Harbour Pointe car dealership and a bank.

Deputy prosecutor Halley Hupp and defense lawyer Kathleen Kyle hammered out the deal, which requires the restitution.

All the offenses occurred between 2001 and 2003. In early 2003, sheriff’s detective Matt Trafford wrote a 16-page court affidavit outlining the case against Rivera and his sports company, Sports Management International.

Rivera made various promises to an inventor, an investor in his company and Harbour Pointe Lincoln Mercury auto dealership, according to the sheriff’s investigation.

During the 2001 baseball season, Rivera somehow wormed his way into the Seattle Mariners clubhouse and befriended former Mariners pitcher Ryan Franklin, court documents said. He later set Franklin up with a promotional deal at the auto dealership and told people that he represented several other of the team’s players, according to documents.

Rivera was supposed to open a trust account so funds paid by Harbour Pointe for advertising would not be mixed with his company or personal funds.

Investigators said Rivera never opened the trust account and the dealership lost $70,000 that was supposed to be paid for an ad campaign with Franklin.

In December 2002, Rivera received $61,000 from a man to market a new machine that’s supposed to teach players the correct way to throw a baseball. The inventor told detectives little or no marketing was done and he’s out the money.

In January 2003, Rivera told an investor his company was worth $500,000. The investor bought a share of the company for $76,000, and was supposed to receive $3,000 a month on the investment.

The investor received only one check, documents said.

In a separate investigation, Rivera told the Seattle man he was an attorney and would file a lawsuit on the victim’s behalf to recoup money from a failed movie production. Documents allege that Rivera accepted $60,000 in several payments, while saying that a Utah attorney was handling the lawsuit and a big settlement was due.

Investigators alleged that Rivera set up a phony telephone number with a Utah prefix and the Seattle man only heard a taped message giving the name of a bogus attorney from that state. No lawsuit was filed. The billing address for the Utah number was Rivera’s home, at that time in Edmonds, investigators said.

Judge Farris said the thefts were sophisticated and, if Rivera ever returns to court for a crime, a judge would “throw the book at you.”

Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.