Prosecutors say a quiet corner of Nike’s music-licensing operation turned into a seven-figure kickback machine, and two Portland-area men are now facing a heavy stack of felonies because of it.
This month, a Washington County grand jury indicted a former Nike business-affairs employee and a consultant who ran a one-person firm, accusing them of siphoning more than $1 million from the company through inflated music-licensing payments. Court filings say the pair used shell companies and phony invoices to move money out of Nike and back to the former employee, and prosecutors have charged them with racketeering and money laundering, counts that carry serious felony exposure.
According to OregonLive, court documents identify 53-year-old Bradley Mosher as the owner of a consulting firm called Good Measure LLC, which listed Nike as its sole client. Prosecutors say the alleged scheme ran from June 2020 through December 2022, with Mosher billing Nike for padded music-licensing fees, then routing roughly half of those payments back to a shell company linked to former Nike employee John Griffith. The indictment, returned in May, charges both men with 24 felony counts, including racketeering, laundering a monetary instrument and aggravated theft.
How prosecutors say the scheme worked
Griffith, who worked in a business-affairs role handling music licensing and left Nike in 2022, allegedly approved or authorized payments to Good Measure and steered work the firm performed. Reporting by KPTV and other outlets says investigators flagged at least 11 suspicious payments and tallied more than $1 million in alleged losses tied to the arrangement. Court papers point to a shell company called Quiver and Bow LLC as the vehicle used to send money back to Griffith.
Charges, court action and response
The case did not surface in public right away. Washington County prosecutors obtained a secret indictment in May that lays out what they describe as a pattern of deceptive billing and kickbacks tied to Nike’s music-licensing work, Complex reported. Mosher had his initial appearance this week in Washington County Circuit Court, and a trial date has not yet been set.
Neither Mosher nor Griffith has been convicted of any crime in this case. According to court filings and local reporting, Nike declined to comment on the allegations, and Griffith did not respond to a request for comment.
Legal implications
The state charges include alleged violations of Oregon’s racketeering law, known as ORICO, which is codified at ORS 166.715 et seq.. Prosecutors have also cited statutes covering aggravated theft in the first degree and laundering a monetary instrument, found in ORS chapter 164.
Under Oregon’s sentencing rules, an aggravated-theft conviction can carry a multi-year prison term, depending on the amount involved and a defendant’s criminal history. The state’s racketeering framework also allows for civil remedies, including forfeiture in some situations, which can add another layer of risk beyond prison time and fines.
Defense attorneys in racketeering and white-collar cases often focus on how prosecutors frame the money flows, challenging whether there was a criminal “pattern” at all. In disputes like this one, paper trails, payment approvals and email records tend to become the star witnesses.
Wider fallout and corporate controls
The Washington County indictment lands as Nike faces other legal troubles involving alleged theft of company property and goods, a run of cases that highlights potential weak spots in both corporate controls and the broader supply chain. In a separate federal case last week, prosecutors accused a multi-person cargo-theft ring of diverting roughly $2 million in Nike merchandise from a distribution center, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The new state case out of Washington County raises fresh questions for big Portland-area employers that lean on outside consultants for specialized work. Vendor oversight, invoice review and conflict-of-interest checks may all get another hard look from in-house lawyers and compliance teams watching how this one plays out.
For now, prosecutors have not set firm trial dates, and filings show the matter remains in the pretrial stage, Complex noted. The defendants are presumed innocent while the case moves through the courts, and upcoming hearings and motions will decide whether the state can prove the alleged pattern beyond a reasonable doubt.
