The former director of ticket operations at U. Kansas, Kassie Liebsch, resigned Thursday after the U.S. Attorneys General Office federally charged her and four other former Kansas Athletic officials with the “misappropriation” of tickets valued from $3 million to $5 million.
Liebsch remained on ticket office staff after the University of Kansas commissioned an independent investigation last spring into fraudulent ticket sales. The report did not implicate Liebsch in any of the activity.
“We went by the report,” Jim Marchiony, associate athletics director, said.
However, since the investigation began last spring, Leibsch has been named as one of the four former employees and a former consultant indicted for stealing tickets. Each of the defendants face a maximum penalty of 30 years in federal prison, as well as a $1 million fine per person.
“With a federal investigation ongoing, we have known that indictments, unfortunately, were a possibility,” interim athletics director Sean Lester said in a press release from the Athletic Department. “We strongly support the U.S. Attorney’s search for the truth in this matter.”
Tom Blubaugh, 46, and Charlette Blubaugh, 43, both from Medford, Okla.; Ben Kirtland, 54, of Lenexa; Rodney Jones, 42 and Liebsch, 28, both from Lawrence, are the indicted.
According to a press release put out by the Attorneys General office, Blubaugh began stealing season tickets for KU athletic events in 2005. She gave the tickets to Kirkland, Jones, Liebsch, Brandon Simmons, former assistant athletics director, and Jason Jeffries, former director of ticket operations, to sell to third parties.
Simmons and Jeffries pled guilty to related offenses and are not included in the new indictment. They have delayed their sentencing until March 2011 but possibly face three years in prison and fines up to $250,000.
The report also claims that the officials entered false information into a computer system installed to prevent ticket theft. It also said that they made payments, wrote checks and had ticket brokers write checks to parties not affiliated with Kansas Athletics.
One method they allegedly used was to purchase money orders with cash in amounts less than fund requirements in an effort to keep their personal gains from being traced back to them, according to the Attorneys General office.
This violated University policies limiting staff members to two complimentary season tickets for football and basketball, which are not allowed to be transferred or sold.
Liebsch had been serving as the director of ticket operations at Kansas Athletics since January. She had started working for the ticket office as a University student in 2002.
Efforts have been made in the last six months to ensure donors, fans and students can trust the Kansas Athletics ticket office, Lester said in the press release.
“We have implemented measures to strengthen our ticket protocols and make the entire process more transparent,” Lester said.
Those measures include new controls and restrictions on access to the ticketing system and new transparency regarding seating among other actions.
Simmons and Jeffries, who were also accused of taking part in the ticket scandal, pled guilty to related offenses and are not included in the new indictment.