Feds charge broker, ex-White Sox employees in years-long ticket scam

A prolific broker and two former Chicago White Sox employees have been charged in an alleged scheme to fraudulently sell thousands of tickets to the South Siders’ ballgames, ultimately costing the team roughly $1 million.

The broker, 34-year-old Bruce Lee, of Chicago, has been charged along with former ticket sellers James Costello, 66, and William O’Neil, 51, both of New Lenox. A 20-page indictment that became public Friday claims Lee made $868,369 by selling 34,876 tickets through the scam during the 2016 through 2019 baseball seasons.

Lee, owner of Great Tickets, faces 11 counts of wire fraud and two counts of money laundering. Costello is charged with one count of wire fraud, and O’Neil is charged with lying to the FBI when he claimed last March he never gave Lee complimentary White Sox tickets without the team’s knowledge.

Lee and his attorney, Robert Rascia, declined to comment when reached by the Sun-Times on Friday evening. Costello and O’Neil could not be reached.

There’s something delightfully old-fashioned about this form of corruption- in certain details, it’s similar to the ticket frauds that used to be common on Broadway before the 1970s.