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A Georgia businessman was convicted Friday of defrauding former NBA stars Dwight Howard and Chandler Parsons of $8 million following a trial in Manhattan federal court.

The jury returned a verdict against Calvin Darden Jr. eight years after Darden was sentenced to a year in prison for posing as his successful father in a failed attempt to buy Maxim magazine. In that case, Darden obtained leniency by cooperating with prosecutors against others charged in the case.

This time, however, Darden turned down two government offers to plead guilty and went to trial.

Howard — an eight-time All Star, three-time Defensive Player of the Year and one of the NBA’s most dominant centers during the prime of his 18-year professional career — testified at trial that he was defrauded out of $7 million. He played for seven franchises, most notably the Orlando Magic – who drafted him first overall in 2004 – and the Los Angeles Lakers, where he won his only NBA title during the pandemic-affected 2019-2020 season .

During his testimony, Howard said Darden fooled him into giving him $7 million by convincing him it was an investment toward the purchase of a women’s basketball franchise. When a prosecutor asked him if he was getting anything in return for his $7 million, Howard testified he was “slapped in the face.”

Prosecutors said Darden worked with a sports agent to fool Parsons into sending $1 million, which was intended to support the development of James Wiseman, who currently plays in the NBA.

Following Darden’s conviction on all charges, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Meade immediately attempted to take Darden into custody. He said he had not learned his lesson since the 2016 case, when he cooperated before being convicted and granted leniency.

He also said Darden has been convicted three times of multimillion-dollar fraud and that prosecutors believe he will face between 11 and 14 years in prison when he is sentenced early next year.

Meade said the government planned to seize all of Darden’s assets, including his Atlanta home, along with luxury cars, art and jewelry purchased with money obtained through the fraud.

Judge Vernon S. Broderick said Darden can remain free on bail after his attorney insisted he is no longer at risk of committing more fraud — and that he is needed by his family, including his prominent father, who is ill.

Darden’s father, Cal Darden, is a former senior vice president for operations at Atlanta-based United Parcel Service Inc. who has served on the boards of several major companies.

During closing arguments Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Thompson said the evidence that Darden Jr. “committed these crimes is overwhelming.”

Thompson said Darden Jr. lied about what he would spend the money he received from the basketball players on, and then transferred the money through multiple accounts to try to launder it.

The prosecutor said Darden Jr. spent at least $6.1 million of the $7 million he got from Howard, including $500,000 on two cars; $110,000 on a piano; $765,000 for a down payment on a $3.7 million home; $90,000 on luxury watches and another half-million dollars for home upgrades, in addition to the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on art.

Thompson said he also posed as his father, as he had done in the previous fraud eight years ago, to “leverage his father’s good name.”

However, attorney Xavier Donaldson argued that his client never impersonated his father to the athletes and accused prosecutors of trying to get jurors to use “guesswork, speculation and unreasonable inferences” to reach a guilty verdict.