Fiesta Bowl Scandal Sends Nonprofit Game’s Ex-Boss to Jail

Former Fiesta Bowl chief executive John Junker was sentenced Thursday to eight months in prison for conspiring to solicit political contributions from employees of the nonprofit college football contest, The Arizona Republic and Reuters report.

Mr. Junker led the Tempe, Ariz., game for two decades and was credited with building it into a college-football powerhouse that quadrennially hosts the national championship game. He pleaded guilty in February 2012 to a federal conspiracy charge for his role in a scheme that saw staff members reimbursed by the organization for making campaign donations to bowl-friendly politicians.

The Fiesta Bowl fired Mr. Junker in March 2011 in the wake of a damning internal report on the political spending and other questionable uses of organizational funds. After his ouster, he went to work for faith-based social-service charity the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. He is due to be sentenced next week on related state charges, for which he will serve time concurrently with the federal sentence set to begin in mid-June.