Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Sports

Chiefs superfan turned robber told to pay $10.8M

A judge ordered the Kansas City Chiefs superfan who committed a series of bank robberies to pay $10.8 million to a Bixby, Oklahoma, teller he threatened with a gun in December 2022.

Last Wednesday, Tulsa County District Judge Tracy L. Priddy ordered Xaviar Babudar, widely known as Chiefsaholic, to pay Payton Garcia, the former teller, $3.6 million for inflicting physical harm and emotional distress and $7.2 million in punitive damages.

Babudar’s attorney, Matthew Merryman, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Garcia’s attorney, Frank Frasier, acknowledged Monday that it will be a challenge to collect the money. Babudar was unemployed and living in cars at the time of his crimes. He reached a federal plea agreement in February, admitting to stealing more than $800,000 in 11 robberies across seven states and laundering the proceeds through casinos. The plea deal requires him to pay at least $532,675 in restitution to the financial institutions he robbed.

“But the point is two things,” Frasier told ESPN. “He’ll never be able to profit from this. Say he writes a book in prison, say he does the Lifetime or Hallmark movie … anything he obtains from that will be paid to his creditors.

“The second part overall is this: The judge sent a message that you cannot profit from crime. You cannot profit by greater notoriety, you cannot profit from clicks, getting more views, getting more likes.”

Babudar, 29, built a large social media following as @Chiefsaholic on X and Instagram, cultivating the image of an ambitious, generous young man who enjoyed gambling, Kansas State sports and, most of all, the Chiefs. However, an ESPN investigation revealed that much of what he portrayed about himself online was not true.

Babudar was first arrested Dec. 16, 2022, in Bixby, after fleeing the Tulsa Teachers Credit Union, where he pointed at black CO2 pistol at Garcia and demanded she give him “the 100s” or he’d put a bullet in her head, according to Bixby police.

He was released on bond in February 2023, and a month later, after receiving $100,000 in winnings from two bets on the Chiefs, escaped. He evaded authorities for nearly four months before being apprehended July 7, 2023, in California.

Babudar is currently at Leavenworth federal prison in Kansas and is scheduled to be sentenced in July.

Frasier said Garcia had to leave her job after the robbery and is still dealing with the trauma of the crime.

“This has affected her children, her marriage,” Frasier said. “She’ll never be able to go back into work in banking. [It affected] all aspects of her life.”

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