CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — Former West Virginia University men’s basketball player Kerr Kriisa admitted Thursday to participating in a fraud scheme that totaled millions of dollars, as announced by U.S. Attorney Matthew L. Harvey.
Kerr Kriisa, a 25-year-old Estonian national who spent the 2023-24 season with the Mountaineers, plead guilty to one count of wire fraud.
According to the plea agreement, Kriisa sent a victim an email in February 2026 claiming to be “Irene” under a fictitious email he had created to continue his fraudulent scheme. Within that email, he demanded a $9,000 payment to avoid litigation and publicity regarding a financial dispute “Irene” had with Kriisa.
“Financial fraud is not a game, and those who choose to deceive and exploit others will be held accountable,” Harvey said. “Mr. Kriisa’s years‑long scheme caused real harm, and today’s plea underscores that this office will pursue anyone who engages in conduct like this, regardless of any notoriety or success they may have achieved. We will continue to stand with our law‑enforcement partners to uncover fraud, defend victims, and ensure that offenders face serious federal consequences.”
As part of Kriia’s plea agreement, the government has agreed not to recommend a sentencing of more than 24 months for the crime.
According to WVNews, First Assistant Federal Public Defender L. Richard Walker told Magistrate Judge Michael J. Aloi that he and his client did not have a “viable defense” had the case gone to trial, and Kriisa told Aloi he was currently undergoing treatment for a gambling addiction.
The February 2026 incident was one of numerous acts Kriisa took to defraud two individuals of millions of dollars in a scheme that dates back to at least 2022 when Kriisa was playing at Arizona, according to the indictment. Kriisa is alleged to have repeatedly sought payments from two victims, and, at times, instructed one victim to transfer money to the other under false pretenses. He’s also alleged to have once fraudulently signed an agreement promising to repay a victim, which Kriisa did not.
Kriisa was charged in July when authorities alleged between 2022 and June 2, 2026, that he carried out a scheme to obtain nearly $2.2 million from multiple victims in Monongalia County and elsewhere.
“What we’re saying in this indictment is the allegations are essentially he weaponized people’s compassion and took advantage of them,” Harvey said back in July. “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 played at Arizona for the first three seasons of his six-year college career. After one year at WVU, he spent the 2024-25 season with Kentucky and the most recent season at Cincinnati. Kriisa was limited to nine games with the Wildcats and 19 with the Bearcats as a result of injuries.
Kriisa, who will remain on supervised pre-sentence release in Kentucky, is scheduled to be sentenced on December 22, 2026 at 2:30 p.m. before Northern District Judge John P. Bailey in Wheeling.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jarod Douglas is prosecuting the case, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is conducting the investigation.