Kansas City Chiefs Superfan ChiefsAholic Sent to Jail for Bank Robbery

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A federal judge has sentenced a Kansas City Chiefs superfan known as “Sick Man” to more than 17 years in prison for a series of 11 bank robberies in seven states in which he stole nearly $850,000 to fund his social media fame.

Xavier Babudar, 30, learned his fate on Thursday — the same day his beloved Chiefs were preparing for a match Season inauguration against the Baltimore Ravens. He will spend 17 1/2 years in prison for bank robberies he committed. admitted to earlier this year.

Babudar gained a huge following on his @ChiefsAholic account on social media platform X after showing up at games dressed as a wolf in a Chiefs uniform. His ardent support for the Chiefs has become well-known on social media, although he is not even close to being the team’s most famous fan since Taylor Swift started dating quarterback Travis Kelce last year.

“Babudar’s theft spree allowed him to fund expensive tickets and cross-country travel to Kansas City Chiefs games while he built a large online fan base. But the bank and credit union employees he terrorized at gunpoint suffered the greatest consequences of his true nature,” U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore said in a statement.

Most of the money Babudar stole was never recovered, so a court ordered him to pay more than $530,000 in restitution and forfeit anything he used to launder the money, including an FBI-signed painting of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

But of course, he may never be able to repay such a large amount, just as he is unlikely to pay $10.8 million to an Oklahoma bank teller whom he terrorized and assaulted at gunpoint during one of his bank robberies. Prosecutors said most of the stolen money was laundered through casinos and online gambling.

Babudar robbed or attempted to rob banks in Iowa, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Tennessee, Minnesota, Nevada, and California in 2022 and 2023. Two of the robberies occurred after he cut off his ankle monitoring bracelet while out on bail and fled Oklahoma. In 2022, he robbed the same bank twice in Clive, Iowa, although the bank changed its name in the months between the robberies.

When he was first arrested in 2022, he was carrying a bag filled with $289,750 in cash, $24,000 in betting slips and bank deposit slips showing he had deposited $20,000 and $50,000 into his account earlier that year, respectively.

Before the 2022 season began, Babudar placed two winning $5,000 bets that the Chiefs would win Super Bowl LVII and Mahomes would be named the game’s Most Valuable Player. Before leaving, he picked up a $100,000 check from Argosy Casino in Illinois and used some of the winnings to buy a vehicle he used to evade authorities.

He was arrested in Sacramento, California in July 2023 and has been in federal custody since then.