Jim Walsh

@jimwalsh_cp

WILDWOOD - Something wasn’t right about boardwalk attractions here that challenged people to throw a football or basketball, authorities say.

But it’s not that the games were rigged. Instead, officials say, the prizes given to winning players — purportedly pricey jerseys from pro football and basketball teams — were fakes.

An Egg Harbor Township man, accused of buying almost 17,000 bogus jerseys as prizes between 2010 and 2012, pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to traffic in counterfeit goods.

Authorities say Evan Strothers, 30, took part in the scheme with his brother Brett, a Mays Landing resident. Brett Strothers, 35, pleaded guilty to a similar conspiracy charge last month, according to court records.

Under plea agreements, the brothers will forfeit about 7,500 counterfeit jerseys and more than $100,000.

South Jersey Crime | Courier-Post | courierpostonline.com

The Strothers brothers awarded the jerseys at three game attractions on the boardwalk in Wildwood and North Wildwood, according to a September 2013 criminal complaint.

“The games enticed customers to pay for the chance to win a purported authentic NBA or NFL jersey by shooting basketballs into a hoop or tossing footballs through a target,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for New Jersey said in announcing charges against the brothers.

The jerseys had a value of $4 million — or would have, if they were legal, according to federal prosecutors.

Authorities learned of the scheme after an undercover agent from U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement attended a trade show in Miami in search of counterfeit traffickers in July 2011.

The investigator met a man, identified only as “Jack,” who said he could provide counterfeit products. The agent later that month received a call from Brett Strothers, who said he’d received the investigator’s number from “Jack," according to the complaint.

Brett Strothers asked the agent’s help in getting a shipment of jerseys through customs and a business relationship began.

According to the complaint, the brothers obtained many jerseys from an undercover agent at a Garden State Parkway rest stop. The meetings were secretly recorded, and at the first delivery in May 2012, the indictment says, “Evan Strothers asked the (undercover agent) if he was a police officer and said that, if so, the (agent) should ‘blink both your eyes and we’ll walk away.’”

The brothers allegedly obtained their jerseys from a supplier in China, Haresh Aldesani, who awaits trial in federal court, Newark.

Jim Walsh; (856) 486-2646; jwalsh@gannettnj.com