A concert promoter was prosecuted in Spartanburg Friday on charges of taking funds for a concert that never happened.
The South Carolina Attorney General’s Office announced that 44-year-old Marc Hubbard of Mecklenburg County, N.C. was arraigned on one count of securities fraud and one count of forgery. Hubbard is accused of soliciting funds from a victim in 2008 for the alleged purpose of promoting an Alicia Keys concert.
Prosecutors say the victim gave Hubbard’s company Sports Dimensions, Inc. approximately $700,000 for the concert but he never used the funds for that purpose.
The Attorney General’s Office previously filed “cease and desist” orders against Hubbard in 2009, saying that Hubbard was claiming to sponsor Keys concerts. Solicitation materials used by SDI provided specific dates, locations, performers names, total expenses, and the net profit allegedly achieved at each concert. Investigators subpoenaed the company at the time to provide contracts between itself and the artists it named, but the order said Hubbard did not do so.
Hubbard is also accused of presenting a fraudulent insurance certificate in order to keep a lease on a club he was operating in Florence.
If convicted, both counts would carry possible prison time, fines, or both.
