The New York Daily News lead mainstream media reports yesterday about “disgraced sports memorabilia kingpin” Bill Mastro of Masto Auctions plead guilty to mail fraud and admitted to trimming/altering a high value trading card to increase it’s value. Mastro will be sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Ronald A. Guzman, and faces up to five years in prison.
Per the story by New York Daily News:
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.
The New York Daily News has been publishing excellent coverage of the Mastro Auctions developments, some of which has been noted here on the Original Prop Blog:
The journalists for the Daily News, O’Keefe and Thompson, published a book in 2008 (The Card: Collectors, Con Men and the True Story of History’s Most Desired Baseball Card).
Jason DeBord