(Notes from Chuck Gallagher, Sports Ethics Keynote Speaker: When we presented this case a few months ago, a number of business people asked, “Why are athletes so crooked?” Though about 10% of PPP money was taken fraudulently (nearly $12 billion), most was stolen by small and large businesses, healthcare facilities and associations. Allison Baver is one story of poor choices and their consequences.)
If a Hollywood producer sought to make a movie about an athlete’s fall from Grace, I might recommend the life of Allison Baver. It would not be a movie filled with action or violence but of self-inflicted wounds that will last a lifetime.
At One Time
Olympic athletes breathe rarified air. They win because they compete in the razor-fine line between world records and “out-of-control.” In fact, in 2009 when she was competing with the U.S. Olympic Team in Bulgaria, she broke her leg and ankle during a speed-skating relay race. She battled back, and won a bronze medal in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic games. Her story was inspirational and she was celebrated.
Following her victory, and armed with accomplishments and accolades, Baver felt that the time was ripe to pursue her entrepreneurial dreams under the guise of Allison Baver Entertainment. It was a company that saw itself in the light of an “engine behind stories that move the needle. We are purpose-driven across film, television, and lifestyle endeavors.”
The broad description says a lot and mostly, nothing. The website described what “ABE” they in these terms:
“Founded by Olympic medalist Allison Baver, ABE empowers visionaries, creators, and entrepreneurs to achieve greatness, while pushing beyond pre-conceived limits.”
The problem was that the organization was built on air. Baver saw herself as a Beverly Hills celebrity, model and future star of television and movies. She showed up at Hollywood galas and such; a minor player in a world where fame is fleeting and star power is everything. She accumulated some funds but not enough to match her ambitions.
However, aside from another try at the Olympics in 2014 she was never much seen in the public-eye again. She has tried her hand at modeling and making appearances. She had some good intentions along the way. In 2010, she founded the “Off the Ice Foundation” presumably to help disadvantaged children however, it seems to not have gotten off the ground. She is on the board of the U.S. Olympians and Para-Olympians Foundation.
Perhaps those attempts at noble aims might mitigate her situation when she goes before a judge. Somewhere her ambitions turned darkly unethical.
Easy Money May Lead to Jail
Now we fast forward to the pandemic. Perhaps impatient to go about building an entertainment career one small triumph at a time Baver decided to swing for the fences and become a movie producer. Where would the funds come from to line the pockets of Allison Baver Entertainment? She would lie.
According to Fox Business (Megan Henney, January 21, 2022):
“Baver lied on loan applications to fraudulently receive $10 million from the Paycheck Protection Program – some of which she invested in a movie about the serial killer Ted Bundy, prosecutors say.
Baver allegedly claimed in some applications for PPP funding that her company had an average monthly payroll of $4 million and 105 employees, according to the indictment. In others, she said she had 430 workers. But the indictment alleges that Baver actually had no employees or monthly payroll.”
The PPP funds were most often life savers for millions of businesses, but there were unethical entities such as Allison Baver Entertainment that were no more than shells and scams.
Undoubtedly, Baver felt that no one was watching and no one would care if she “faked it until she made it.” She should have known better.
Neither Hollywood nor the Olympics work that way. There is no substitute for doing things the right way. The money was not hers to take, especially while millions of workers and their organizations desperately needed the funds to survive. She may have once been an elite talent on the ice, but such status does not guarantee freebies and glamor shots for life.
Allison Baver “has been charged with eight counts of making a false statement to a bank and one count of money laundering…federal prosecutors want Baver to forfeit roughly $9.7 million of the money. She also faces up to 40 years if convicted on all counts.”
It is an all-around tragedy of the awful consequences of intentional fraud.
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