John Jefferson
Inset: Xaviar Michael Babudar (Tulsa County Sheriff). Background: “ChiefsAholic” walks toward Empower Field at Mile High before an NFL football game between the Denver Broncos and the Chiefs on Saturday, Jan. 8, 2022, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski).
Kansas City Chiefs superfan “ChiefsAholic” was sentenced to nearly two decades in prison after admitting he led a double life as a prolific ski-mask-wearing bank robber with a haul of $847,725 he used to fund his Chiefs Kingdom lifestyle.
Xaviar Michael Babudar, 30, was sentenced to 17 ½ years in federal prison without parole, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced in a news release.
“While parading as a social media celebrity, the defendant secretly engaged in a violent crime spree of armed robberies and attempted robberies across seven states,” said U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore. “Babudar’s robbery spree bankrolled the expensive tickets and travel across the country to attend Kansas City Chiefs games while he cultivated a large fan base online. However, the bank and credit union employees whom he terrorized at gunpoint suffered the brunt of his true nature. He tried to flee from justice, but law enforcement caught up with him and now he will spend a significant portion of his life in prison.”
Babudar was ordered to pay $532,675 in restitution to the banks he stole from. Not all of the money was recovered. He will also have to forfeit property, including an autographed painting of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes that the FBI recovered.
As Law&Crime reported, the wolf-costumed superfan pleaded guilty in February to charges of bank robbery, money laundering and transporting stolen property across state lines. Babudar admitted he committed, or tried to commit, 11 robberies at banks and credit unions, two of them while on the run.
The first heist he admitted to was when he stole $70,000 from a Great Western Bank in Clive, Iowa, on March 2, 2022. He handed the teller a note demanding money and indicating he had a gun. In a heist in Iowa, on July 13, 2022, he jumped over the counter armed with a silver and black gun and demanded employees open the vault. He got $303,845 that day, authorities said.
He took the money to Missouri, laundered it through area casinos, and deposited it into his bank account, prosecutors said.
Then he went back at it, prosecutors said. At a bank in Tennessee on Nov. 17, 2022, he hopped the counter, pressed his gun against a teller’s body and demanded to be taken to the vault. He told employees if he was given a dye pack, he would “come back and put a bullet in your head,” prosecutors said.
While fleeing, he left behind a hat that authorities recovered and found DNA that matched DNA from a glove he left behind in an earlier robbery. A few days after the heist in Nashville, Babudar bought $20,000 in chips from a local casino with some of the cash.
In November 2022, he got $25,000 from a bank in Iowa. Then he went back to the place he first robbed in March when his luck started to run out. He entered the vestibule at the Pinnacle Bank in Papillon, Nebraska, on Dec. 15, 2022, but couldn’t open the doors, authorities said.
He was arrested the following day when he robbed the Tulsa Teachers Federal Credit Union. He had a large bag with $139,500 in $100 increments and $10,750 in $50 increments for $150,250. A search of his 2019 Mazda 3 turned up goggles and gloves. Investigators also found sports betslips, totaling $24,000 and credit union deposit letters for $20,000 and $50,000, authorities said.
During his spree, he won two big bets at the Argosy Casino in Illinois: Mahomes would win Most Valuable Player at Super Bowl LVII, and the Chiefs would win the Super Bowl. After the Chiefs beat the Philadelphia Eagles 38-35 on Feb. 13, 2023, and Mahomes won MVP, the casino mailed Babudar a $100,000 check in March.
Days after receiving that check, Babudar, who had been released from custody on bond after his arrest in Oklahoma, cut his ankle monitor, fled the state and used his gambling winnings to purchase a vehicle in Henderson, Nevada, prosecutors said. While on the run, he robbed two more banks, one in Nevada, and another in California, before he was rearrested in Sacramento on July 7, 2023.
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