Rooftop Owner Sentenced for Defrauding Chicago Cubs

CHICAGO, IL - A Wrigleyville rooftop owner was sentenced to 10 months in prison this week for under-reporting sales and defrauding the Chicago Cubs and Cook County municipal taxing agencies from 2008 through 2011.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Barry Jonas said that R. Marc Hamid, 48, of Lincolnwood would return "to one principle above all others: wherever he thought he could cut corners and put more money in his own pocket, he did it."

“If there was a way to benefit himself even if to another’s detriment, he did it,” Jonas said.

Hamid, who operated the Skybox on Sheffield rooftop across the street from Wrigley Field, was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin after he was convicted last year on four counts of mail fraud and five counts of illegally structuring financial transactions, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office Northern District of Illinois.

Evidence presented by prosecutors at Hamid's trial showed he caused Skybox on Sheffield to submit false annual statements to the Cubs, who had an agreement with all rooftop owners that a royalty of 17 percent of gross annual revenues would be given to the team. Hamid was also accused of circumventing an amusement tax from the city of Chicago and Cook County as well as a requirement from the state of Illinois for Skybox on Sheffield to pay a certain dollar amount per ticket sold.

He was accused of under-reporting revenues by $1.4 million of the three-year span by diverting sales to his two ticket sales companies, JustGreatTickets.com Inc. and Just Great Seats LLC.