Man Makes Brilliant Move to Steal from NHL Players, Spend Money on Parties for Stars

What we've got here is a classic case of some guy wanting to hang with legends of sports ... and probably ruining his life in the process. That guy's name is Ken Jowdy, who was a golf-resort developer, but now has managed to really hack off a bunch of hockey players and even Phil Mickelson, according to the New York Post.

What'd he do? Oh, he essentially stole $25 million meant to build to resorts in Mexico that just happen to be a whopping seven years behind schedule. I know construction can run long and overbudget, but somewhere in the second or third overdue year, don't you start to ask questions? But anyway, what'd he do with $25 million? I mean, you could live off of that, no problem, unless of course you harbor delusions of grandeur and want to hang out with big-time athletes, so Jowdy allegedly did the following:

Jowdy, the players say, instead got rowdy, squandering their cold cash on "lavish parties" that included "various female porn stars, escorts, strippers [and] party girls" to impress Clemens, Jackson, banned star Pete Rose and ESPN announcer Joe Morgan, one of the suits filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court alleges.

For what it's worth, Morgan denied any involvement in the parties to TMZ. As if that wasn't good enough, we get into some other specific offenses Jowdy felt bold enough to pull off. (And I'll only pick a few, because the list is pretty long.)

* Put a Clemens gal pal named Adrian Moore, described as a "regular party attendee who was close to Clemens," on his payroll "as a personal favor" to the former Yankee Cy Young winner. 

* Bought three private planes to fly himself, childhood pals, the baseball players and their "female companions" to Mexico, Palm Springs, New York and Las Vegas.

* Hired Brian MacNamee - the onetime Clemens trainer who told Congress he supplied the ballplayer with steroids - as a fitness trainer.

The recent lawsuit brought against Jowdy is being brought by "two dozen NHL players" according to the New York Post, but Jowdy also owes Mickelson money after he was brought on as a course designer.

What's sort of sad and pathetic is that Jowdy clearly just wanted to hang out with big names and he couldn't help himself with all that cash on hand. He was reportedly trying to convince people like Clemens to buy real estate, but they "were vocal and adamant that they would never purchase."

And yet, he kept flying them around and reportedly having lavish parties. You almost feel bad for the guy. But then again, any guy dumb enough to steal money from more than 20 hockey players probably deserves whatever sort of unholy beating that's coming to him.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.