{"id":383294,"date":"2026-07-23T02:36:35","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T02:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/383294\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T02:36:35","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T02:36:35","slug":"fake-university-of-austin-campus-deal-leads-to-1m-fraud-conviction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/383294\/","title":{"rendered":"Fake University of Austin campus deal leads to $1M fraud conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a three-day trial, the jury agreed with prosecutors that Robison convinced Joe Lonsdale, the downtown\u00a0university’s co-founder and tech venture capitalist, to invest $1 million in a company that said it was buying 1,800 acres along the Colorado River outside Bastrop for a campus community<\/a>. Instead, Robison absconded with the money.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s somewhat embarrassing, but yeah I was tricked,\u201d\u00a0Lonsdale testified Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Rather than the money being held in a bank account until another $1 million was raised to start the project, Robison siphoned off the money for himself.\u00a0Bank records presented in court show that within a day of Lonsdale’s investment, Robison transferred $250,000 to another account he controlled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was convicted of wire fraud and three counts of money laundering in a case touching powerful conservative circles and one of the richest men in the state.<\/p>\n

Lonsdale\u00a0has created a dozen successful companies and is no stranger to a financial deal. He commands as much as $8 billion in capital through 8VC, his venture capital firm. But somehow, he says, the 63-year-old Robison, with two bankruptcies and a checkered history of failed business ventures, got one over on him and his lawyers.<\/p>\n

The crux of the defense was that Robison never intended to fail, that he did try to make the deal work but wasn\u2019t very good at the endeavor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI won\u2019t say John Robison\u2019s the best businessman in the world,\u201d his attorney George\u00a0Lobb said in closing arguments. \u201cIn fact, I think he is the worst.\u201d<\/p>\n

The defense said the burden to prove Robison intended to make off with the money on Feb. 24, 2022 \u2014 the date of the wire transfer \u2014 was on the government. Robison’s attorneys said they didn’t think the government met that burden.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe jurors had more than enough reasonable doubt,\u201d said David White, another of Robison\u2019s attorneys, attributing the verdict to the emotions of the jury rather than the law.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they hate the defendant, that\u2019s it,\u201d\u00a0Lobb said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dan Guess, chief of the Austin Division for the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office, said justice had been served.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fraud was obvious,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sentencing will come at a later date, imposed by U.S. district court Judge Robert Pitman.\u00a0Robison\u2019s attorneys said they hadn\u2019t decided if they would appeal the jury\u2019s verdict.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a three-day trial, the jury agreed with prosecutors that Robison convinced Joe Lonsdale, the downtown\u00a0university’s co-founder and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,5454],"class_list":["post-383294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-saen_share"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}