Criminal Information — United States v. Jones (Dkt. 1, N.D. Ga.)

Summary

A criminal information in United States v. Lester T. Jones Jr., Case 1:25-cr-00458-JPB, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division, filed October 29, 2025 as Document 1. It states that Jones worked in the accounting and finance department of ATL Hawks, LLC, the operating entity for the Atlanta Hawks, from about March 2016 through June 2025. Count One charges wire fraud, alleging that from at least May 2017 he used false documents to have the company pay for personal expenses, including an altered American Express email and a purported December 12, 2024 Wynn Hotel invoice of $229,968.76 for the NBA Emirates Cup. It includes a forfeiture provision.

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Case 1:25-cr-00458-JPB    Document 1       Filed 10/29/25    Page 1 of 8
   []ORIGIN AL

                    IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
                   FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGf!1\ED IN OPEN COURT
                             ATLANTA DIVISION            u.s.o.c. -Atlanta
                                                                      OCT 2 9 2025
   UNITED ST ATES OF AMERICA                                        KEP.V ~
                                                                         EIMER
                                                                             N terk
                                                                     B ·
                                                                       •           uty Clerk

           V.                                Criminal Information

   LESTER T. JONES JR.                       No. l:25-CR-458


THE UNITED ST ATES ATTORNEY CHARGES THAT:

                                    Count One
                                   (Wire Fraud)


   1. Beginning on a date unknown, but from at least in or about May 2017, and
continuing through in or about June 2025, in the Northern District of Georgia
and elsewhere, the defendant, LESTER T. JONES, JR., knowingly devised and
intended to devise a scheme and artifice to defraud ATL HAWKS, LLC, and to
obtain money and property from ATL HAWKS, LLC by means of materially
false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises, and by omission
of material facts, and for the purpose of executing the scheme, with the intent to
defraud, to cause the transmission of interstate wire communications, in
violation of Title 18 United States Code, Section 1343.
                                   Background

   2. At all times relevant to this Information:
      a)        ATL HAWKS, LLC, a Delaware Limited Liability Company
   ("Company"), was the operating entity for the Atlanta Hawks ("Team"), a
   professional basketball team that competed in the National Basketball
   Association ("NBA").

        Case 1:25-cr-00458-JPB   Document 1   Filed 10/29/25   Page 2 of 8




   b)       Defendant JONES was employed in the Accounting and Finance
Department of the Company from in or about March 2016 through in or about
June 2025, working out of the Company's corporate offices in Atlanta.
   c)       The Company initially hired defendant JONES as Director, Financial
Planning & Analysis, in or about March 2016. Beginning in or about July
2018, defendant JONES served as the Company's Vice President, Financial
Planning & Analysis. Beginning in or about August 2021, defendant JONES
served as the Company's Senior Vice President, Finance. Between in or about
July 2018 and June 2025, defendant JONES was the most senior accounting
executive in the Company after the Chief Financial Officer.
   d)       Defendant JONES' job duties evolved over time, but included
managing and supervising personnel; handling payroll, accounts payable,
financial planning, accounting, and employee expense reimbursements; and
preparing or assisting with the preparation of the Company's financial
statements, budgets, and reports to senior management and ownership.
   e)       Defendant Jones was an authorized signatory on the Company's
bank accounts, and he developed and issued the Company's Travel &
Expense reimbursement policy in or about November 2016. This policy
prohibited the use of Company credit cards for personal expenses.
   f)       In or about early 2021, defendant JONES began administering the

Company's corporate credit card account with American Express. In this role,
defendant JONES: (i) served as American Express' s sole contact regarding
payment issues, delays, and card suspensions; (ii) determine which
employees should receive Company American Express cards; and (iii) had


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full visibility into the number of corporate credit cards, identity of the
cardholders, account balances, and other program details. Defendant Jones
also issued and caused to be issued multiple corporate American Express
credit card accounts in his name and could authorize charges to cards
assigned to other Company departments and employees.
   g)       Beginning in or about early 2021, defendant JONES also
administered the Company's electronic expense reimbursement platform. In
this role, defendant JONES supervised Company employees who operated
the reimbursement platform, handled expense reimbursements, and
approved payments to American Express, individual employees, and others.
   h)       To complete an expense reimbursement request, a Company
employee submitted certain information electronically, including an expense
report, invoice, receipt, or other document substantiating the expense(s), and
certification that the report was true and accurate.
   i)       By virtue of his position, defendant JONES had special access to and
insight into any limitations with the Company's internal financial system,
which defendant JONES exploited for personal gain, including that prior to
implementing a new expense reimbursement system in July 2024, the
Company's reimbursement platform failed to properly integrate employees'
corporate American Express credit card transactions into the platform, such

that the actual transactions and expenses were not visible within the platform
to the Company personnel handling the reimbursements for purposes of
verification.




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                                Scheme to Defraud
   3. The object of the scheme to defraud was for defendant JONES to use his
position as a senior accounting employee to embezzle over $3.8 million from the

Company.
   4. Defendant JONES accomplished the scheme to defraud in two ways: (a) by
submitting and directing the submission of dozens of fraudulent expense
reimbursement requests, including fictitious and altered invoices, that caused the
Company to reimburse defendant JONES for business expenses that defendant
JONES had not incurred or did not exist, and (b) by charging millions of dollars
in personal expenses to the Company's corporate credit cards without the
Company's knowledge and authorization, including for travel to the Bahamas,
Costa Rica, Hawaii, Las Vegas, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, and Thailand,
Louis Vuitton apparel, jewelry, Porsche car expenses, and tickets to concerts and
sporting events.
   5. In furtherance of the scheme to defraud, defendant JONES intentionally:
(a) manipulated certain financial reports prepared for internal planning and
budgeting purposes that he reported to the Company's senior management in
order to conceal his unauthorized use of the Company's corporate credit cards;
(b) doctored e-mail messages that were provided to legitimize transactions; and
(c) falsely attributed large balances on a corporate American Express credit card
to Team operations, to divert attention away from the unauthorized personal

charges he incurred.
   6. During the scheme defendant JONES made hundreds of unauthorized

transactions using the Company's American Express credit cards. For example,


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       Case 1:25-cr-00458-JPB           Document 1     Filed 10/29/25   Page 5 of 8




in or about January 2025, defendant Jones altered an email from American
Express to defraud the Company into making a $229,968.76 payment to
American Express to cover fraudulently incurred personal expenses
      a)           On or about January 23, 2025, at 12:10 p.m., defendant JONES sent
   an e-mail message to an employee in the Company's Accounting and Finance
   Department, J.W., stating, in relevant part, "I'm trying to get my $200k
   payment together ... AMEX threatened to cut us off again if I don't get that
              II
   one ....
      b)           On or about January 23, 2025, at 3:53 p.m., at the direction of
   defendant JONES, S.D., an employee in the Company's Accounting and
   Finance Department, prepared and submitted an electronic expense
   reimbursement request for defendant JONES in the amount of $229,968.76 for
   charges supposedly incurred by the Company at the Wynn Hotel in Las
  Vegas, Nevada for the NBA Emirates Cup. The reimbursement request
   attached a purported December 12, 2024 Wynn Hotel invoice provided by
   defendant JONES in the amount of $229,968.76 that referenced "NBA
  Emirates Cup, Tickets, Credentials, Logistics, Room."
      c)           On or about January 24, 2025, at 11:13 a.m., defendant JONES
  received an e-mail message from American Express inquiring about an
  overdue balance of $217,942.81 with respect to the Company's corporate

  credit card program.
      d)           On or about January 24, 2025, at 12:06 p.m., defendant JONES
  forwarded an altered version of the 11:13 a.m. American Express e-mail to

  S.D. and J.W., stating, in relevant part," At least I know the Wynn's number is


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   right." The version of the 11:13 a.m. American Express e-mail was altered to
   falsely add references to "Wynn" charges totaling $229,968.76.
      e)       On or about January 24, 2025, at 3:54 p.m., S.D. sent an e-mail
   regarding the completed reimbursement request in the amount of $229,968.76
   to defendant JONES for approval.
      f)       On or about January 24, 2025, at 3:56 p.m., defendant JONES replied
   to S.D.'s e-mail, stating," Approved. Thank You."
      g)       On or about January 24, 2025, at 4:06 p.m., S.D. replied to defendant
   JONES's approval e-mail, stating, "Paid! Hopefully AMEX wont [sic] give you
   any more problems."
      h)       No Company American Express credit card or Company personnel
   incurred a charge in the amount of $229,968.76 on or about December 12,
   2024, and no such invoice was ever issued by the Wynn Hotel.
   7. On or about January 23, 2025, in the Northern District of Georgia and
elsewhere, defendant LESTER JONES, for the purpose of executing and
attempting to execute the above-described scheme and artifice to defraud, and to
obtain money and property by means of false and fraudulent pretenses,
representations, promises, and omissions, with the intent to defraud, did cause to
be transmitted by means of a wire communication in interstate commerce certain
writings, signs, signals, pictures, and sounds; to wit, the transmission of data

from the Company's corporate computer server located in Atlanta, Georgia to
the computer server of the Company's electronic expense reimbursement
platform, Workday, located in Ashburn, Virginia, to cause the submission and




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        Case 1:25-cr-00458-JPB    Document 1     Filed 10/29/25      Page 7 of 8




approval of a fraudulent expense reimbursement report by the Company in the
amount of $229,968.76.
   All in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343.
                          Forfeiture Provision
  -8. Upon conviction of the sole offense alleged in this Criminal Information,

the defendant, LESTER T. JONES, JR., shall forfeit to the United States of
America, pursuant to Title 18, United States Code, Section 981(a)(l)(C) and Title
28, United States Code, Section 2461(c), any property, real and personal, which
constitutes or is derived from proceeds traceable to the offense, including, but
not limited to, the following:
   MONEY JUDGMENT: A sum of money in United States currency,
representing the amount of proceeds obtained as a result of the sole offense
alleged in this Criminal Information.
   9. If, as a result of any act or omission of the defendant, any property subject
      to forfeiture:
      a) cannot be located upon the exercise of due diligence;
      b) has been transferred to, sold to, or deposited with, a third party;
      c) has been placed beyond the jurisdiction of the Court;
      d) has been substantially diminished in value; or
      e) has been commingled with other property, which cannot be divided
         without difficulty,
the United States intends, pursuant to Title 21, United States Code, Section
853(p), as incorporated by Title 28, United States Code, Section 2461(c), to seek




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        Case 1:25-cr-00458-JPB     Document 1    Filed 10/29/25   Page 8 of 8




forfeiture of other property of the defendant up to the value of the forfeitable
property.


THEODORE S. HERTZBERG
United States Atto~
                      1

B~ ~OY                    ~
Assistant United States Attorney
Georgia Bar No. 718905
75 Ted Turner Drive S.W.
600 U.S. Courthouse
Atlanta, GA 30303
404-581-6000




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