APPLE VALLEY, Minn. (KMSP) - Former Gophers basketball star Sam Jacobson and his wife, Traci, have been charged with felony theft-by-swindle connected to the 2011 sale of a home in Apple Valley, Minn.
According to the criminal complaint filed in Dakota County, Jacobson sold his home on Gibraltar Terrace in Aug. 2011 to his then live-in girlfriend Traci Quam via short sale, to avoid a foreclosure. Under terms of the short sale, Jacobson was supposed to move out, but state fraud investigators say he remained in the home.
“On paper, Sam moved out, but in reality he didn’t,” Quam admitted in an interview with the Minnesota Commerce Fraud Bureau.
The Gibraltar Terrace home was sold just 4 months later for $538,000 – a profit of more than $176,000.
According to the complaint, Quam used the profits from the Gibraltar sale to purchase another home, on Cobblestone Parkway in Apple Valley, for $552,500. “The day she closed on the Cobblestone Lake home, July 20, 2012, Sam Jacobson proposed to her,” the complaint says. Marriage records show Traci and Sam Jacobson were married on June 14, 2013.
Sam Jacobson and Traci Jacobson are charged with one count each of theft by false representation and one count of theft by swindle.