Sports

St. John’s fires ticket-scalping staffer

St. John’s senior associate athletic director for external affairs, Brian Colleary, was fired yesterday for scalping tickets to the school’s basketball games, the university announced.

As first reported last week by The Post, Colleary was suspended without pay pending a university investigation. Sources told The Post that no other members of the athletics department were involved in the ticket scalping and that Colleary’s actions did not constitute a violation of NCAA rules.

“Following an internal review conducted by the university, Athletics Department employee Brian Colleary has been terminated for inappropriate activities regarding the misappropriation of men’s basketball tickets,’’ the university said in a statement.

A source also said the university had no plans to press charges against Colleary because the amount of money involved in the scalping was not significant. Another source disputed that claim, saying the amount could have been in the neighborhood of $80,000 but the university wanted the matter dealt with in-house and quickly.

That source said Colleary scalped tickets to last year’s home game against Duke and the Big East Conference Tournament. It was unclear if he also scalped tickets to this year’s home game against Syracuse. All three events were sellouts at the Garden.

“St. John’s University and its Department of Athletics expect all employees to conduct themselves with the highest moral and ethical standards,’’ the university said in the release. “Our review concluded that this is an isolated incident, and we will continue to be diligent in monitoring this matter as we further strengthen our controls and policies.’’