Feds: Vick Illegally Used Pension Funds
Jailed Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick illegally transferred $1.3 million in pension funds for personal use, which included paying for fines assessed for his role in dogfighting, according to federal labor officials.
The improper withdrawal was from MV7, a celebrity marketing company owned by Vick, according to the U.S. Labor Department. Officials say that Vick violated his duties as trustee of a pension plan that covered nine current or former MV7 employees.
“This action sends a message that the Labor Department will not tolerate the misuse of plan money and will take whatever steps necessary to recover the assets owed to eligible workers,” Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis said in a prepared statement.
The complaints were filed in federal district and bankruptcy courts the day Vick left the Leavenworth federal penitentiary in Kansas and headed to Virginia to appear at a bankruptcy hearing next week, The Associated Press reports. Vick was at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City late Wednesday afternoon.
Mark Lichtenstein, one of Vick’s bankruptcy attorneys, declined to comment to AP on both the Labor Department allegations and the details of Vick’s apparent temporary move to Virginia for the April 2 hearing.