Former Miami Heat security officer Marcos Thomas Perez pleaded guilty Tuesday to transporting and transferring stolen goods in interstate commerce, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.
Perez, 62, stole more than 400 jerseys and other memorabilia from a secured equipment room and sold them on online marketplaces. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a release that Perez sold more than 100 stolen items for $1.9 million over three years and shipped them across state lines, often at prices below their market value. The items included a game-worn LeBron James jersey from Game 7 of the 2013 NBA Finals, which later sold for nearly $3.7 million in a 2023 Sotheby’s auction.
Perez, a retired member of the Miami Police Department, worked as a security officer with the Heat from 2016 to 2021 and later served as an NBA security employee from 2022 to 2025. While working on game days at the team’s Kaseya Center, Perez had access to an equipment room that stored hundreds of game-worn jerseys and other memorabilia intended for a future Heat museum, according to the release.
Law enforcement executed a search warrant at Perez’s home in April and seized almost 300 items that the Heat confirmed had been stolen from their arena.
Earlier this month, Perez appeared in federal court and was charged with transporting and transferring stolen goods in interstate commerce.
The charges are reminiscent of those faced by former Augusta National employee Richard Brendan Globensky, who pleaded guilty to stealing items worth an estimated $5.3 million from the country club, including Arnold Palmer’s green jacket, which was intercepted in an FBI sting operation in 2022. Globensky received a 12-month prison sentence in March.
(Photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
Aug 20, 2025
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