Albany Man Sentenced In $450K Chili Peppers Concert Fraud Scheme

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ALBANY (CBS SF) - An Albany man was sentenced Tuesday to 24 months in prison and ordered to pay full restitution to his victims after defrauding European concert promoters out of $450,000 by misrepresenting his ability to book Red Hot Chili Peppers concerts in Eastern Europe, according to prosecutors.

During a series of communications in 2011 and 2012, Quincy Krashna, 50, convinced the victims to put the money into a fake escrow account as a deposit to secure his services in arranging potential concerts to be performed in Croatia, Romania and Bucharest.

In an effort to deceive his victims, prosecutors said Krashna created a fraudulent escrow agreement that made use of a Chase Bank logo. Ultimately, however, they transferred the money into a personal bank account that was under Krashna's control and he moved the money to other accounts.

Krashna was indicted in January 2017, and charged with seven counts of wire fraud. He pleaded guilty to one of those counts and the others were dismissed.

Krashna is scheduled to begin serving his jail sentence Nov. 6. After his release, Krashna has been ordered to serve three years of probation.