By Richard Chin

St. Paul Pioneer Press

A scheme that allegedly involved worthless Vikings tickets, State Fair tickets and accusations among three ticket brokers is playing out in a Ramsey County criminal case.

Ticket broker Jason Lonnie Gabbert admitted Tuesday in an interview that he cooked up a plot to sell worthless Vikings tickets to another ticket broker named Marty McCabe last fall. But he said that was in order to recover money that Gabbert said McCabe stole from him in a transaction involving State Fair tickets last summer.

But it turned out that a third ticket broker named John Connolly ended up paying for the tickets and losing the money, $2,150, according to a criminal complaint that charges Gabbert, 44, of Phoenix, with theft by swindle.

Gabbert, in a telephone interview, said McCabe stole $2,200 last summer while the two were selling State Fair tickets.

“They should be charging Marty McCabe,” Gabbert said. “I came up with a scheme to get my money back.”

Gabbert said he acquired a “burner phone” and texted McCabe under a false name, making up a story that he was a relative of a couple that was going to get married and had 50 tickets to a Vikings-Bears game that were going to be used for a pre- wedding event. But the wedding was called off and the family wanted to sell the tickets, according to Gabbert’s story.

Gabbert said McCabe agreed to buy the tickets, but McCabe asked to have them sent to Connolly’s Little Canada address. Connolly paid the cash-on-delivery charges with a check made out to a friend of Gabbert’s, Gabbert said.

Gabbert said that after he sent the tickets, he voided the tickets by having them reprinted. And once he received the money, he said, he texted McCabe and told him that the tickets were worthless, Gabbert said.

“At that point, I considered my business with Marty McCabe was concluded,” Gabbert said.

According to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday, Connolly was the complaining witness. He said McCabe told him about the 50 Vikings tickets for sale, and McCabe asked him if he wanted to go in on the tickets with him, the complaint said.

McCabe told Connolly that Connolly would have to put up the money to buy the tickets, the complaint said.

The complaint said Connolly called the man with the tickets, who was using the name Jason Gaborik, and Connolly agreed to buy the tickets from Gaborik.

Connolly then learned the tickets were worthless, the complaint said.

“When Connolly confronted the defendant, he replied by stating that McCabe owes him money,” the complaint said. “He rationalized that, since Connolly and McCabe are partners, Gabbert took what was owed him, voided and reprinted the tickets and called it even.”

“He (Connolly) loaned Marty the money,” Gabbert said over the phone Tuesday. “My transaction was never with John Connolly.”

“He’s got all sorts of stories,” McCabe said when contacted Tuesday. “Gabbert did this to John Connolly.”

McCabe denied stealing from Gabbert.

“If that was the case, he should’ve taken me to court,” he said.

Gabbert said he lives part of the time in Arizona, but does business in Minnesota. In 2002, when he ran a sports memorabilia shop in Wood Lake, Minn., he got in the news for auctioning off for charity a piece of gum discarded by Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Luis Gonzalez. The gum reportedly raised $10,000 in the online auction.