Ken Mauer Jr. (born April 23, 1955 in St. Paul, Minnesota) is an official in the National Basketball Association (NBA) since the 1986–87 NBA season. As of the beginning of the 2006–07 NBA season, Mauer has officiated in 1,167 regular season and 67 playoff games, including one NBA Finals game (in 2008, Mauer officiated an additional 2 NBA Finals games). Mauer wears uniform number 41.

Personal life

Mauer attended Harding Senior High School in St. Paul and later attended and graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1977. At Minnesota, Mauer played baseball and was named an All-Big Ten player. Mauer comes from a family heavily involved in athletics. Ken's cousins include Joe Mauer and Jake Mauer. Ken's father and four brothers were all referees, including his brother Tom Mauer, a referee in the Women's National Basketball Association. Outside of officiating, Mauer is a guest speaker at basketball officiating camps and clinics and charitable and social groups.

Mauer's hobbies include cars, art, theater, movies, and traveling.

Mauer resides in Fort Myers, Florida.

Early career

Mauer officiated for 12 years in the state of Minnesota, nine years at the collegiate level, and later six years in the Continental Basketball Association before being hired by the NBA prior to the 1986–87 season. In 1993, Mauer was selected to officiate the NBA Europe Tour in London, England.

Airline ticket income investigation

In 2000, Mauer was convicted of a felony, three counts of tax evasion, and one count of obstruction of justice for not reporting downgraded airline tickets as income to the Internal Revenue Service. Mauer failed to pay taxes on $26,500 of additional income over a three-year period. Mauer was one of two NBA referees who chose not to plea bargain his case, believing that there was an injustice done against him. Mauer stated that he never intended to commit a criminal act, that his accountants signed off on his tax returns, and that he was not told of any issues. In April 2001, Mauer was sentenced to five months in jail, five months of home detention, three years of supervised release, and 800 hours of community service. At the conclusion of the trial, Mauer said, "I'm proud that I stood up for myself. At the same time, I'm relieved that it turned out this way. This is the first decent day I've had in a year and a half. This summer is going to be hard, serving my sentence. But I'm going to turn it into a positive thing. I'm going to help the kids, I'll get into shape."

NBA Finals debut

Mauer was one of 12 referees selected to work the 2006 NBA Finals between the Dallas Mavericks and Miami Heat, the first Finals of his career. Mauer's first game in the championship series was Game 3.

During the 2010-11 season Mauer called five technical fouls over the course of ten seconds during a Minnesota Timberwolves and San Antonio Spurs match.