A Bengals intern found a way to make some extra cash during his time with the team this season: Steal stuff from the locker room and throw it up on eBay.
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Nicholas Brannon, a student at Wilmington College, was arrested in December after lifting a total of 106 game-used items from the Bengals locker room, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Stolen items included personalized Bengals shoes, team gear, practice wear and other game-worn items that Brannon gave to a friend to sell on eBay. The two friends split the proceeds that were estimated at $3,588.73.
“He is not a collector,” Brannon’s attorney Bill Gallagher said. “Nick looked at it as a fan and it just got a little out of hand. He’s a 21-year-old kid who made a stupid mistake. He hopes he’s going to get to rectify all of it.”
Brannon will appear in court Wednesday facing a fifth-degree felony charge, which carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison.
Gallagher said he hopes to get the case resolved within a month and avoid a conviction for Brannon. Gallagher hopes the fact that Brannon wasn’t the one selling the items will keep him out of serious trouble.
“He didn’t know that it originally had any other value other than just being a fan,” Gallagher said. “Then somebody else realizes it had value somewhere else even though (he) really wanted it in (his) room. That’s the way it really started with him. It really, really did.”
Brannon returned the remaining merchandise and plans to reimburse the team for the cost of the stolen goods once a fair-value price is decided upon.
The Bengals had no comment on the incident, the Enquirer reported.
