$5M ticket reselling scheme’s victims included economist at U. of Chicago

A West Side woman has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison and ordered to pay back nearly $5 million to investors she defrauded in a scheme to resell tickets for concerts and sporting events.

Prosecutors said 44-year-old Tracy Monti lied and told the investors she had access to purchase event tickets directly from primary sellers at face value and would split the profits she made with them once she resold the tickets on the secondary market.

Monti pleaded guilty in February to a single count of wire fraud for the scheme, which involved at least 12 victims between 2010 and 2015, according to court documents.

Monti was sentenced Tuesday to 46 months in prison and ordered to pay the victims nearly $5 million in restitution by U.S. District Judge Manish Shah.

One of the investors, and the man who lost the most in Monti’s scheme, was Roman Weil, an economist and accountant who has taught at University of Chicago and got his doctorate from Carnegie-Mellon University.

Prosecutors were at a loss to say how Monti — a woman who dropped out of high school during her freshman year and never earned her GED — was able to bilk Weil out of so much money. Money from Weil, prosecutors said, was used by Monti to pay back earlier investors in a Ponzi-like scheme.

Reached Tuesday evening, Weil declined to comment.

Monti was working as a receptionist at an upscale eyewear store when she met and befriended many of the victims and told them she had contacts at venues.

Monti’s court-appointed defense attorney, Piyush Chandra, said Monti was subjected to emotional and physical abuse as a child and suffered from low self-esteem.

Monti became “enamored” with rock musicians and was drawn to the rock music culture, he said. Chandra said she at some point did buy and resell tickets to events.

One of the defrauded investors, Dawn Salden, said she believed she “will never recover the money” Monti stole from her, much less the time she spent tracking Monti down.

“You took my kid’s college money,” Salden told Monti in court Tuesday.

Monti told Judge Shah she was “disgusted” with herself and “wanted to take responsibility” for her actions.

Shah said he believed Monti wanted to redeem herself but that she continued to defraud investors after she was arrested by Chicago police when a victim reported the scheme.

“In person, you appear genuinely frightened about what happened and what the future holds for you,” Shah said during sentencing. “But to be blunt . . . on paper you are a liar and a thief.”

After the hearing, Monti said in a brief interview she was glad it was finally over.

“I’ll just do what I have to do,” she said.