Suburban businessman sentenced for stealing nearly $1 million from client

A businessman who helped Michael Jordan open his private golf club in Florida has been sentenced to more than a year in prison for stealing nearly $1 million from a client.Donald Mudd, 66, pleaded guilty this year to a mail fraud charge stemming from his work with an accomplice at a New York-based sealant manufacturer to embezzle roughly $950,000 from the manufacturer.Mudd headed two Skokie-based hardware marketing businesses. He was the president of Mudd-Lyman Sales and Services and the manager of Simply Service LLC.He conspired with the vice president of the sealant manufacturer, Rodney Hawkins, to fraudulently inflate commissions and submit bogus invoices between 2009 and 2014, according to an indictment filed in 2019. Mudd and Hawkins then split the receipts.Mudd was sentenced Friday to one year and three months in federal prison. He also was ordered to pay $951,755 in restitution and a $60,000 fine.Hawkins, 57, of North Carolina, last year to a mail fraud charge and is awaiting sentencing.Mudd, of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, is listed in public records as a former business partner of Jordan at the star’s deluxe golf course, Grove XXIII Golf Club, which opened in 2019 in Hobe Sound, Florida.