Former Nike Employee Pleads Guilty to Selling Stolen Limited Edition Sneakers

Yamaguchi ordered promotional and sample sneakers from a Nike factory located in China and took them from Nike’s Beaverton campus.

Kyle Yamaguchi Pleads Guilty to Selling Stolen Nike Shoes

by Brandon Richard

Kyle Yamaguchi, a former Nike promotional product manager between July 2006 and January 2012, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Portland to conspiracy to transport, receive and sell stolen goods for shipping 42 pairs of stolen sneakers to a buyer in Florida in April 2013 for $62,000. This is according to a report from Oregon Live's Everton Bailey Jr.

The news follows an April report stating that Yamaguchi, along with Nike employee Tung Ho and Florida buyer Jason Michael Keating orchestrated a massive ring of fraud from Nike’s Beaverton headquarters. Ho, who took over Yamaguchi’s job at Nike in 2012, and Keating have both pleaded not guilty and will face a trial in federal court on March 10, 2015.

Per the terms of his plea, Yamaguchi was ordered to pay $50,000 in a criminal forfeiture. He also settled a federal civil lawsuit against him filed by Nike and agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to the company earlier this year.

Yamaguchi’s cooperation with investigators led to the federal charges against Ho and Keating. In turn, prosecutors agreed to seek just five years of probation for Yamaguchi when he’s sentenced on March 31. He had faced up to five years in prison.

During his time at Nike, Yamaguchi ordered promotional and sample sneakers from a Nike factory located in China and took them from Nike’s Beaverton campus. The scheme continued when Ho took over his job, with Yamaguchi then acting as a middleman. Keating paid $679,650 for more than 630 pairs of limited edition sneakers that Yamaguchi and Ho allegedly stole from Nike between September 2012 and March 2014.

Last March, police seized nearly 1,950 pairs of Nike sneakers from Ho’s home during a raid. According to a federal search warrant, Ho ordered 46 pairs of LeBron sneakers in May 2012 that couldn’t be accounted for. In February, investigators found a pair of ‘MVP’ LeBron 9s listed for $20,000 on eBay suspected to of being stolen by Ho, who was fired from Nike in March.

This isn’t the only major legal headline Nike has made as of late. Last week, the company filed a $10 million dollar lawsuit against three former designers, accusing them of stealing its commercial secrets and sharing them with rival brand adidas.