Bill Mastro Sentencing today

[Eric]

NY Daily News is updating on twitter. They just posted this...

@NYDNSportsITeam
Judge rejects Bill Mastro plea deal!

Previous posts

41m NYDN Sports I-Team ‏@NYDNSportsITeam
Mastro looks like a whipped dog as he awaits change of plea hearing. All that swagger had evaporated.
Expand

51m NYDN Sports I-Team ‏@NYDNSportsITeam
Randy Mastro, ex-Giuliani deputy, accompanied his brother Bill to Chicago federal court today.
Expand

53m NYDN Sports I-Team ‏@NYDNSportsITeam
Mastro looks terrified, quite frankly. Refused to look at me when I approached him.
Expand

54m NYDN Sports I-Team ‏@NYDNSportsITeam
Ex-sports memorabilia king Bill Mastro just arrived in Chicago federal court with his attorneys. He is expected to plead guilty to fraud.
Expand
1h NYDN Sports I-Team ‏@NYDNSportsITeam
Ex-memorabilia king Bill Mastro accused of shill bidding, trimming Gretzky T206 Wagner card.
Expand
1h NYDN Sports I-Team ‏@NYDNSportsITeam
Ex-sports memorabilia long Bill Mastro scheduled to plead guilty to fraud in Chicago federal court today.
Expand

[Eric]

‏@NYDNSportsITeam
Judge nixes Bill Mastro plea deal, rips prosecutors for not requiring ex-memorabilia king to cooperate against other defendants

[ChrisCavalier]

‏@NYDNSportsITeam
Judge nixes Bill Mastro plea deal, rips prosecutors for not requiring ex-memorabilia king to cooperate against other defendants

Very interesting Eric. Based on that statement, does that mean the case will now go to trial?

[Eric]

@NYDNSportsITeam

Chicago court shocker: Judge nixes plea deal that would have sent ex-memorabilia king Bill Mastro to prison for 30 months or less.

[Eric]

Do any attorneys out there know what, if any of this would apply to the Mastro case?

[C] Acceptance of Plea Agreement by Trial Court

A judge is not required to accept a plea agreement. If the judge rejects the plea agreement, the defendant must be given the opportunity to withdraw the plea, and must be informed that if he does not withdraw it, “the disposition of the case may be less favorable to the defendant than that contemplated by the plea agreement.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(e)(4).

With respect to a guilty plea based on a sentencing-recommendation agreement, the judge must inform the defendant that if the court does not accept the sentencing recommendation, the defendant is not entitled to withdraw the plea.

[allstarsplus]

Thanks for posting Eric. This will drag on.

[Eric]

From Bloomberg...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-0...ring-case.html

A sports memorabilia auctioneer’s attempt to plead guilty in a case in which he’s accused of defrauding bidders and tampering with the condition of a rare Honus Wagner baseball card was rejected by a U.S. judge.

U.S. District Judge Ronald A. Guzman in Chicago today told lawyers for both sides he needed more information before approving an agreement that includes a maximum punishment of 30 months in prison and a $250,000 fine and doesn’t require auctioneer William Mastro to cooperate in the prosecution of three co-defendants in a case where he faces a top term of 20 years.
“What does the government get out of this?” Guzman asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Nancy DePodesta.

Mastro, the former principal of Mastro Auctions, was charged with one count of mail fraud when he and three other men were indicted by a grand jury in July.

Mastro was accused of concealing his trimming the sides of a series T-206 card of Wagner, a Hall of Fame shortstop for Major League Baseball’s Pittsburgh Pirates, to bolster its apparent value.

“Mastro represented that Mastro Auctions had sold the most expensive baseball card in the world,” in company promotional materials, according to the indictment.

Mastro pleaded not guilty on July 31. Each of his co- defendants also pleaded not guilty.

A resident of Palos Park, Illinois, Mastro owned the auction business until 2004 and was its chairman and chief executive officer from 1996 to February 2009, prosecutors said.

Rare Items
Other items that Mastro and former Chief Operating Officer Doug Allen are accused of auctioning while knowing their authenticity was disputed were hair from Elvis Presley and a purported 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings trophy baseball, according to indictment.

The judge questioned disparities between each side’s estimate of the amount of loss represented by the alleged wrongdoing. The proposed plea agreement wasn’t made public.
Defense lawyer Michael Monico told Guzman the difficulty arose from the shifting values of some of the items sold and the uniqueness of the case.
“I think this is the first case of its kind ever in the United States,” Monico said.

The Wagner card is “the Holy Grail of our hobby,” Bill Goodwin, president of St. Louis-based auctioneer Goodwin & Co., said in a July telephone interview. His firm sold one for $1.23 million in April.
Tobacco Taint

According to legend, Goodwin said, Wagner opposed having his image included with tobacco products, which is how the cards were circulated at the time.

The card was pulled from production, accounting for its scarcity. About 45 to 65 are believed to exist in varying degrees of preservation, according to Goodwin.

Prosecutors sought a sentence of as long as 6 1/2 years, DePodesta said. She said the terms were the product of negotiations she could not make public.
“What I’m buying here is a pig in a poke,” Guzman said, citing the absence of a presentence report. “I need more.”
He postponed the hearing until March 19. Afterward, Monico declined to comment.

The case is U.S. v. Mastro, 12-cr-567, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois (Chicago).

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Harris in the Chicago federal courthouse at aharris16@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net.

[joelsabi]

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i-...sEnabled=false