A week after a San Diego jury had to decide whether to put former NFL tight end Kellen Winslow away for a very long time, another San Diego jury will decide whether to put a very large amount of money in the pocket of current NFL quarterback Drew Brees.
Via NBCSanDiego.com, closing arguments happened on Wednesday in a case where Brees alleging that he was overcharged for diamonds that he purchased as an investment. The jury will begin deliberating on Thursday.
Brees and his wife seek $6.7 million, which represents the difference between the amount paid to Vahid Moradi for a variety of diamonds and the appraised value of the items. Brees accuses Moradi of breach of oral contract, fraud by intentional misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary duty, and fraud by concealment.
Brees testified in court last week.
“I cared for him, cared for his wife, cared for his kids,” Brees said regarding Moradi. “He became somebody that I referred family and other friends to.”
Moradi’s lawyer had a different characterization of the relationship.
“They were not friends. Vahid Moradi was Mr. Brees’s friendly jeweler,” Moradi’s attorney, Pete Ross, said. “Drew Brees has an obsession for jewelry. He was drawn in like an addict with a drug.”
It’s not entirely clear whether this is a case of Brees getting something other than what he thought he was buying or Brees simply paying too much for that muffler. And it’s also not entirely clear whether Brees has pursued this matter because he truly believes he was swindled or because he’s so intensely competitive that he refuses to admit that he lost in a business transaction.
Regardless, a jury will be determining the winner and the loser in this one. Brees will be hoping for a more fair application of the law than the one he got when he was last on a football field.