Two men were charged with hawking “well-crafted” counterfeit tickets to the Super Bowl were each sacked with 79 counts of forgery, the Queens district attorney’s office said Tuesday.
Damon Daniels, 43, of the Bronx and 32-year-old Eugene Fladger of Philadelphia are accused of running a counterfeit ticket operation that first caught the attention of law enforcement officials in December, when the NFL’s security division tipped off the NYPD.
After undercover agents spent $2,400 on buying NFL tickets from the duo on two occasions, Daniels and Fladger were seen Monday handling a bag containing 34 Super Bowl tickets, eight game-day parking passes for MetLife Stadium, 12 tickets to an NFL Honors Party, three tickets to the NFL commissioner’s bash at the Waldolf-Astoria Hotel and 69 tickets to other events, according to the criminal complaint.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said in a statement that Daniels and Fladger ran a “lucrative illegal operation that allegedly ripped off the National Football League and sports fans alike.”
The tickets included bar codes that could get past stadium scanners, though the printing was washed out and lacked other security features, according to the DA’s office.
A search of a Queens apartment belonging to Daniels’ girlfriend turned up a printer, photo-grade paper, two fake Super Bowl tickets and a stash of incomplete first-draft tickets, according to the DA’s office. Daniels and Fladger are awaiting arraignment on a host of charges including 79 counts of second-degree forgery and 79 counts of trademark counterfeiting.
