Sportscaster ‘Fast Eddie’ Alexander Gets 5 Years in Fraud Case

Former San Diego television sportscaster Walter E. (Fast Eddie) Alexander was sentenced Friday to five years in federal prison for a probation violation stemming from a 1983 fraud case, prosecutors announced.

Alexander, 49, admitted in April that, during 1986 and 1987, while he was on probation, he defrauded San Francisco Bay-area investors out of more than $200,000, Assistant U.S. Atty. Phillip L. B. Halpern said.

The probation stemmed from Alexander’s 1983 conviction on two felony fraud counts in connection with a scheme that bilked San Diego investors out of $1.6 billion. The scheme involved a series of phony business ventures that extended from California to Pennsylvania.

In November, 1983, when U.S. District Judge Earl B. Gilliam sentenced Alexander to two years in prison and five years’ probation, he called Alexander a “con man” who could “sell refrigerators to Eskimos.”

Alexander had worked as a sportscaster in the early 1980s for San Diego station KGTV (Channel 10). He acquired his nickname because of his rapid broadcast delivery.

In January, 1985, Alexander was released from a halfway house and began his five-year probationary term, Halpern said. This past January, two days before the term was due to expire, Alexander was charged with violating probation.

According to Halpern, Alexander, who had moved to Daly City south of San Francisco, obtained the $200,000 from investors by claiming that major corporations were backing a syndicated sports show. That was a misrepresentation, Halpern said.

On April 3, Alexander admitted that he had violated his probation, Halpern said.

In sentencing Alexander Friday to the five-year term, Gilliam rejected a request from Alexander’s lawyer, G. William Hunter, for probation.

Alexander still faces sentencing in state court in San Mateo County in California on Aug. 29, Halpern said, after pleading guilty to state charges of grand theft and making false representations while selling securities. Both those charges stem from the $200,000 fraud, Halpern said.