Fed charges hit sports pranksters

Two Plymouth pranksters whose purported bid to line up a professional sports tryout went wrong are facing federal wiretapping charges after they taped a phone conversation between two NFL general managers and sold the recording to a sports website, feds say.

Joshua Barber, 20, and Nicholas Kaiser, 20, face up to five years in prison and a $500,000 fine if convicted of secretly recording a conference call they allegedly organized between Buffalo Bills General Manger Buddy Nix and Tampa Bay Buccaneers General Manager Mark Dominik.

Barber and Kaiser are charged with intentionally intercepting a wire communication and making a telephone call without disclosing their identity with the intent to annoy or harass. They are scheduled to appear in federal court Tuesday.

When questioned by federal agents, Barber and Kaiser claimed they had contacted various NFL, NBA and NHL franchises, including the Boston Bruins, in a pitch to get Barber a tryout. That didn’t work, but the ease they had getting through to team brass gave them the idea of pranking general managers, according to an affidavit.

Barber placed calls to Nix and Dominik, in each case pretending to represent the other, and used his cellphone to connect the two in a conference call unbeknownst to the GMs, according to federal prosecutors in New York. Prosecutors say Kaiser illegally recorded the call. In a roughly six-minute call posted on Deadspin in March, Nix and Dominik discuss potential trades and complain about their lack of a franchise quarterback.

Deadspin only learned about the prank after the site was approached by the pair, to whom they paid $200, said Editor-in-Chief Tommy Craggs.

Craggs slammed the Department of Justice over the charges — suggesting an overreach along the lines of the unfolding scandal in Washington, D.C., over monitoring of journalists’ phone calls, emails and movements.

“The one thing that seems to rouse this DOJ to defend the telephonic privacy rights of the citizenry is a couple of NFL executives getting punked,” Craggs said. “What’s next — are we going to send the Jerky Boys to Otisville? This is the dumbest (expletive) thing.”

A man who identified himself as Barber’s father said his son would have no comment. Efforts to reach Kaiser were unsuccessful.

The Bills and Buccaneers declined comment yesterday.