Chris Kirchner, who came close to buying two English football clubs, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for fraud.
Kirchner, 36, was sentenced at Fort Worth courthouse in Texas and also ordered to pay $65,415,938.12 in restitution. His sentence will be followed by three years of supervised release.
In January, a jury found Kirchner guilty of four counts of wire fraud and a further seven counts of money laundering. He has been denied bail and was facing a maximum prison term of 150 years.
Kirchner, wearing an orange jumpsuit at his sentencing on Thursday, was admonished by Judge Mark T. Pittman for his lack of cooperation and communication with his attorneys throughout the process, which began with a private attorney and eventually ended with a court-appointed defense attorney.
Multiple times, Judge Pittman said he did not appreciate Kirchner wasting his time and the court’s time by trying to delay the inevitable, which was a lengthy prison sentence. At one point, the judge remarked, “We’re not going to play these games.” The judge pointed to the fact that it was Kirchner’s decision to go to trial, despite the fact that, as the judge said, the evidence against him was not only beyond a reasonable doubt but “overwhelming.” The judge said the jury took about 30 minutes to return a guilty verdict against Kirchner, saying it was one of the shortest deliberation times he could remember in recent years.
When given the opportunity, Kirchner opted not to speak directly in court. His defense attorney asked for a sentence of around five years, stating that was more in line with the crime. The judge overruled the request and noted that the sentence would come between 235 and 293 months.
Kirchner taking in a match at Pride Park Stadium, Derby, in 2022. (Photo: Nigel French / PA Images via Getty Images)
Though the judge did not list out each forfeiture, he did say they included a 2020 Rolls-Royce, multiple expensive watches, jewelry and various bank accounts.
Following the issuing of the 20-year sentence, the judge directed attention to a piece of artwork at the back of the courtroom — a photo of famous Texas outlaw Sam Bass in a shootout with the Texas Rangers in 1878. Bass lived a life of crime, staging multiple major robberies until his death by gunshot wounds on his 27th birthday. Judge Pittman, directing his comments at Kirchner, said that he should not think that he is any better than Bass.
The judge added that Bass at least had to live life on the run as part of his life of crime, while Kirchner had the luxury of flying on private jets, owning expensive jewelry and playing golf with celebrities.
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The FBI arrested Kirchner on Valentine’s Day 2023, issuing charges of wire fraud after alleging he had sent millions of dollars from the accounts of Slync, a software start-up he founded in 2017, to his personal account. A $16 million Gulfstream jet was among the many things bought with the money of others as he built a “life of luxury” by misappropriating his company’s funds. At Kirchner’s four-day trial, held in January this year, evidence showed he had converted at least $25 million in investor money to his personal use.
Through Slync’s sponsorship of high-profile sporting events — estimated to run to almost $60 million — Kirchner gained notoriety and played golf with stars such as Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose.
The company’s sponsorship of the Dubai Desert Classic, a flagship event for golf’s European Tour, was announced in September 2021 on a multi-year arrangement that would eventually be scrapped 12 months later. There was also a commercial deal with NHL’s Dallas Stars, with Slync unable to maintain payments by June 2022.
“Rather than focus on growing his fledgling business, Christopher Kirchner allegedly swindled investors out of millions of dollars he used to fund a splashy lifestyle – then allegedly attempted to cover his tracks by conning even more investors and by firing employees who dared question him,” said U.S. Attorney, Leigha Simonton, when Kirchner was first indicted.
The fall of Kirchner was sudden and spectacular. His deal to buy English Football League (EFL) club Derby County collapsed in June 2022, just a few months after he walked away from a similar deal to purchase Preston North End, another Championship club.
He was previously named as the preferred bidder to take over Derby, who were then being run by the club’s administrators and was backed by then-manager Wayne Rooney.
(Nathan Stirk/Getty Images)
