With details having come to light Monday in an indictment charging former West Virginia men’s basketball player Kerr Kriisa with five counts of wire fraud in an alleged scheme north of $2 million, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of West Virginia Matthew L. Harvey shed more light on the case.
“What we’re saying in this indictment is the allegations are essentially he weaponized people’s compassion and took advantage of them,” Harvey said Tuesday as a guest on MetroNews Talkline. “What I mean by weaponized compassion, he played on the goodness that these two individuals had by creating a series of false emergencies, fictional third parties, he claims that his family was in imminent danger, his mother had cancer, he was going to sell his organs to payback loans and other financial crises that were becoming of his family.
“What that did was it got these two individuals to loan him money, and the allegations are that there was no intention to ever repay these, and they weren’t actual emergencies and that these were all created to steal money essentially.”
Kriisa is alleged by the Department of Justice to have defrauded two victims of $2.2 million in a scheme dating from 2022 to June 2026.
“The two victims are located here in West Virginia,” Harvey said. “This is still an ongoing investigation, but these are what we know at the time.”
Harvey noted the investigation into Kriisa’s alleged fraud surfaced after a victim came forward to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“It takes a lot of groundwork by our partners at the FBI, as well as our office working with them and the financial institutions and the other law enforcement partners that participate in these types of cases,” Harvey said. “Some are more difficult than others, but it’s a lot of going through financial records, electronic communications and just building the case that way and developing leads and evidence.”
The government seeks “forfeiture of any proceeds traceable to the alleged offenses, including a money judgment of approximately $2.2 million” against Kriisa, who is alleged to have acted as a woman named “Irene” to sign a fraudulent promise to repay one victim $100,000 by a February deadline, according to the indictment.
On Tuesday afternoon, Kriisa was arraigned in a federal courtroom in Lexington, Ky., but did not enter a plea.
According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, a judge granted Kriisa to be released from jail under conditions that he not violate state or federal law, turn over his passport and have no contact with victims or witnesses. He will remain in Kentucky, but travel to West Virginia for court dates with his next one set for July 16 at 2:30 p.m. in Clarksburg.
Kriisa will be represented by L. Richard Walker, a First Assistant at the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Northern District of West Virginia.
“I think the factors that the judge will be interested in is the amount of the alleged scheme. Certainly the fact that he’s a foreign national from Estonia will be a factor in that as well,” Harvey said. “Whether he’s a flight risk based on that, ties to the local community, all of those are important considerations. What’s really important at that stage is to ensure that he’s not a threat further to the community and that he will appear for all of his court dates.”
A native of Estonia, Kriisa played six seasons of college basketball at four Power Conference programs, including his first three at Arizona.
The 6-foot-3 guard announced his intention to transfer to West Virginia in April 2023, but after then-Mountaineer head coach Bob Huggins resigned in the wake of a DUI arrest two months later, Kriisa reentered the transfer portal. Days later, Kriisa went back on that decision and announced he would stick with the Mountaineers, though he was suspended for the first nine games that season for receiving impermissible benefits while with the Wildcats.
Kriisa went on to play the final 23 games of a dismal 9-23 season for WVU under interim head coach Josh Eilert. As a Mountaineer, he averaged 11 points and 4.7 assists.
Kriisa then transferred to Kentucky for the 2024-25 campaign, but had it cut short after nine games due to a fractured ankle. He spent his final college season at Cincinnati, but was again hampered by injury and limited to 19 games.
Over six college seasons, Kriisa played in 127 games.
When asked if there was reason to believe the allegations against Kriisa could have international implications, Harvey offered no comment, but didn’t rule out the possibility of there being more than two victims.
“It’s an ongoing investigation,” Harvey said, “and that certainly could be a possibility as this case develops.”