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Eric
10-10-2013, 09:41 AM
Here are NY Daily News updates from Twitter...

NYDN Sports I-Team ‏@NYDNSportsITeam 1h
We are in Chicago today for Bill Mastro's change of plea hearing in federal court. Sports memorabilia king expected to plead guilty to fraud

NYDN Sports I-Team ‏@NYDNSportsITeam 1h
Judge in Mastro case has already rejected plea deals on two occasions

NYDN Sports I-Team ‏@NYDNSportsITeam 2m
Bill Mastro is accused of shill bidding, trimming famed T206 Wagner card, selling bogus Elvis hair #fraud

NYDN Sports I-Team ‏@NYDNSportsITeam 1m
Rejected plea deals called for Mastro to serve no more than 30 months in prison. We expect new agreement will call for longer sentence

Eric
10-10-2013, 09:54 AM
NYDN Sports I-Team ‏@NYDNSportsITeam 13m
Rejected plea deals called for Mastro to serve no more than 30 months in prison. We expect new agreement will call for longer sentence

Eric
10-10-2013, 11:41 AM
NYDN Sports I-Team ‏@NYDNSportsITeam 4m
Breaking news: Bill Mastro pleads guilty to mail fraud, acknowledges that he trimmed T206 Wagner card, engaged on shill bidding.

Eric
10-10-2013, 03:58 PM
Cardboard Connection posted an article about the case...

http://www.cardboardconnection.com/news/law-of-cards-letters-to-judge-released-in-bill-mastro-fraud-case

"Law of Cards: Letters to Judge Released in Bill Mastro Fraud Case"

And here is a letter sent to the judge by a collector who bought a game used Jackie Robinson bat and suspected shill bidding...

http://cconnect.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/DN91.pdf

Eric
10-10-2013, 04:06 PM
From NY Daily News...

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i-team/mastro-admits-cutting-honus-card-article-1.1482098

Bill Mastro admits cutting T206 Honus Wagner card, pleads guilty to mail fraud
Following years of bullying and berating anyone who accused him of altering the world's most valuable baseball card, Mastro finally admits Thursday that he altered the card he bought for $25,000 and sold for $110,000. It was sold for $2.8 million in 2007.

BY MICHAEL O’KEEFFE / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2013, 4:53 PM

MONTGOMERY, BRIDGET

Bill Mastro, once the most powerful man in the memorabilia business, admits Thursday in a Chicago courtroom that his empire was built upon a fraud.
CHICAGO — Bill Mastro, who spent more than two decades berating and bullying anybody who suggested he had altered the world's most valuable baseball card, a T206 Honus Wagner, pleaded guilty Thursday to mail fraud in U.S District Court — and admitted in the process that he had trimmed the Wagner card to sharply increase its value.

The disgraced sports memorabilia kingpin publicly acknowledged for the first time that he had trimmed the sides of “The Card,” which sold for $2.8 million in 2007 and was once owned by NHL great Wayne Gretzky, in order to improve its appearance and sharply increase its value, a con job that lasted well over three decades and changed the face of memorabilia dealing.

Mastro faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Ronald A. Guzman.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nancy DePodesta told Guzman Thursday that the government could prove that Mastro had committed numerous acts of fraud between 2002 and 2009, including using auction house employees, other consignors, relatives and a priest to orchestrate a long practice of “shill bidding” — artifically jacking up the price of items in his auction house by allowing others to place fake bids.

He also admitted that he had cut the Wagner card, known as the Gretzky T206 Honus Wagner, after DePodesta told the judge that the feds could prove that Mastro trimmed the sides of the “football” shaped card with a paper slicer but failed to disclose that to collector Jim Copeland, who bought the card from Mastro in 1987 for $110,000.

“Are these facts true?" Guzman asked Mastro.

“Yes, your honor," said a humbled Mastro, showing none of the grit and swagger that once made him the most important executive in the memorabilia business.

Mastro may have spent more than 20 years threatening anyone who questioned the integrity of the 100-year-old tobacco card, but several sources told the Daily News over the years that Mastro had privately admitted that he had trimmed the card after he purchased it at a Long Island card shop in 1985 for $25,000.

Mastro's loose lips ultimately helped the feds pursue their case, according to a source familiar with the case. Mastro, in a conversation with a former employee, boasted that he had trimmed the card. The former employee, however, had agreed to cooperate with federal investigators — and Mastro’s bragging was caught on a wiretap.

According to the 30-page plea agreement made public after the hearing, the government wants Mastro to serve between 57 and 60 months in prison. Mastro's attorney, Mike Monico, is expected to ask the judge for a much more lenient sentence. Mastro has also agreed to cooperate with the government as its investigation into memorabilia fraud continues.

Prosecutors believe the scheme conducted by Mastro and his associates between 2002 and 2009 cost collectors between $400,000 and $1 million. Monico, who declined comment after the hearing, has said the scheme cost collectors between $30,000 and $70,000.


CHRIS HONDROS/GETTY IMAGES

Bill Mastro buys the T206 Honus Wagner card at a Long Island card shop for $25,000 in 1985.
Guzman had twice this year rejected plea deals hammered out by Mastro's attorneys and federal prosecutors that would have put Mastro in prison for no more than 30 months. The judge said he feared those agreements would tie his hands in terms of sentencing.

DePodesta also said Thursday that Mastro Auctions had sold a bogus 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings trophy ball to a collector for $62,000 in 2006. Mastro knew there were questions about the authenticity of the trophy ball, according to the superseding indictment, because his company had refunded money to another collector earlier that year after testing indicated the presence of a material not used in commercial paint until after World War II.

Mastro Auctions’ code of conduct claimed it would disclose to buyers if the baseball cards and sports collectibles they were purchasing had been restored in order to improve their condition, but according to the the superseding indictment, Mastro and Allen sold altered cards — including the Gretzky T206 Wagner — and other items without notifying bidders.

Cards that have been trimmed, colored or repaired are worth considerably less — sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars less — than an unaltered card.

Mastro, known in memorabilia circles for his big personality and outsize swagger, dominated the sports memorabilia industry before he shut down the Illinois company in 2009 in the midst of the FBI investigation. The superseding information filed on Monday said that Mastro Auctions bidding records were partially deleted and destroyed prior to July 2007, just before the Daily News first reported that the Chicago FBI had launched an investigation into the company.

His longtime associate, Allen, still faces 14 counts of wire and mail fraud, while another Mastro Auctions executive, Mark Theotikos, was indicted on six counts of wire and mail fraud. Allen and Theotikos have both pleaded not guilty.

A former Mastro Auctions employee, William Boehm, was charged with one count of making false statements to the FBI agents who investigated the company's practices. Boehm has also pleaded not guilty.

The Wagner card has sold for millions of dollars in a series of high-profile transactions since the 1980s, including the 1991 sale of the card for $451,000 to Gretzky and former Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce McNall. It currently belongs to Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick, who paid a record $2.8 million for it in 2007.

In "The Card: Collectors, Con Men and the True Story of History's Most Desired Baseball Card," two Daily News reporters wrote that the Wagner had been cut from a printer's sheet before Mastro bought it in 1985 at a Long Island collectibles shop for $25,000.

The indictment says the card was further trimmed by Mastro to make it appear as if it has been carefully preserved for decades after it was removed from a pack of cigarettes in 1909, an act Mastro repeatedly denied for many years. The upgrade not only improved the appearance of the card, but it increased its value significantly and helped spark the trading card and sports memorabilia boom of the 1980s and 1990s.

"On numerous occasions, defendant Mastro made public statements regarding the Wagner Card during which he denied making any alterations to the Wagner Card," the plea agreement said. "These statements were false as defendant Mastro had altered the Wagner Card by cutting its side borders."



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i-team/mastro-admits-cutting-honus-card-article-1.1482098#ixzz2hM8Mt5n0