Ex- QB’s retirement money sought as fraud restitution
Federal prosecutors want to seize the retirement funds of former Ohio State University and NFL quarterback Art Schlichter, who is in prison for cheating investors in a sportsticket scam.
Schlichter, 57, still owes more than $2.2 million from judgments in federal courts in the southern districts of Indiana in 2001 and in Ohio in 2012.
As of Nov. 8, the amount of the debt that remained in the first case was $75,910 and in the second was $2.19 million, according to a motion filed in U.S. District Court in Columbus last week.
The U.S. attorney's office wants to seize funds in Schlichter's Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Player Retirement Plan and in the NFL Second Career Savings Plan. The motion did not say how much money was left in the funds. If approved, the money would go toward the earlier, smaller debt and anything that is left over would be applied to the larger amount.
According to U.S. Bureau of Prisons records, Schlichter is serving a 10 -year sentence in a medium-security prison in Salters, South Carolina. His expected release date is Oct. 4, 2020. His former attorney, Steve Nolder, said he is being treated for Parkinson's disease.
Schlichter convinced 55 investors that he could obtain tickets to Ohio State football games and other sporting events, including the Super Bowl, and sell them for a profit. He never paid back his investors, instead using the thousands of dollars for gambling and to repay others from whom he'd borrowed money.
Schlichter, who was raised in Bloomingburg in Fayette County, was Ohio State's starting quarterback from 1978 to 1981 and a first-round pick in the 1982 NFL draft. Professionally, he played for the Baltimore and Indianapolis Colts and the Buffalo Bills in the NFL, and the Detroit and Cincinnati teams in the Arena League.
He was previously in prison in Indiana from 1994 to 2006 for fraud and forgery.