Nissen pleads guilty in $60M ticket sales Ponzi scheme

Amelia Camurati
Jason Nissen poses for a photo with actress and model Brooklyn Decker at the Super Bowl in 2012. (Photo from the National Event Company Twitter)

Jason Nissen of Roslyn pleaded guilty Wednesday after defrauding victims of more than $60 million for a wholesale ticket business than turned out to be a Ponzi scheme.

“As he admitted in court today, Jason Nissen’s pitch to investors about access to premium sports and entertainment tickets was a sham,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said. “His investment scheme was really a Ponzi scheme.  Now he awaits sentencing for his admitted swindle.”

Nissen, 45, pled guilty to wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years and is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 21 by U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer.

Nissen served as CEO of a Manhattan-based ticket broker National Event Company beginning in 2010 and began defrauding multiple investors from 2015 to 2017, a release from the U.S. attorney’s office states.

Nissen represented to his investors that he would use their funds to purchase bulk quantities of premium tickets to sporting and entertainment events such as the Super Bowl, World Cup, U.S. Open and Broadway musical “Hamilton,” reselling the tickets at a profit.

Nissen, however, was using the money to pay other investors as well as himself, the release said.

Prosecutors also said that Nissen “falsified financial documents and inflated accounts receivable ledgers” and presented them to victims as fake proof that their money was being used for purchasing tickets for resale so he could get more money.

His alleged victims include a diamond wholesaler that loaned him $32 million, a private-equity firm that invested $40 million and another person who allegedly gave Nissen $1.9 million to buy and resell tickets to a UFC fight, according to the suit.

A New York Times report says that Nissen, when he was a teacher at a Queens high school, was reassigned as school officials investigated whether he sold students tickets to a free Dave Matthews Band concert. He was fired in 2004.

Last summer, Nissen was also denied permission by a federal judge to visit Las Vegas and broker tickets for the Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor fight on Aug. 26.

Michael F. Bachner, Nissen’s defense lawyer, declined to comment.

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