Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth
To those who think selling trimmed cards without disclosure could never be viewed as a crime, the Mastro case is very inconvenient proof to the contrary. As is the FBI investigation of PWCC et al, even if ultimately charges were not brought. If there was no possible crime, nobody, least of all Brian Brusokas, would have devoted the enormous effort to investigating. Not that such proof is even needed, as it's very clear from the face of the mail and wire fraud statutes, which are always being applied to new situations.
|
It feels like you're spinning the facts here to fit your narrative though. Mastro was charged with shill bidding and ONE count of mail fraud, which was for the counterfeit baseball he sold and shipped through Mastro auctions. The mail fraud charge was also shared by other Mastro Auctions employees who had nothing to do with the Wagner. He didn't even mail the card at all. He sold it to someone in person as a cash deal in 1987.
I'm no lawyer, but when I read through discussions of this topic on the Blowhard forums a few years back, I seem to recall most of the lawyers there were in agreement that he had not in fact been charged with any crimes in relation to the Wagner card. But rather it was brought up during the trial as a mere testimony to his character, or lack thereof. Him basically just trying to come clean with anything and everything he could in an effort to gain favor and get a more lenient sentence. But he was not directly charged with a crime for anything related to the Wagner. You mention that he admitted to trimming the Wagner in his plea deal, but that plea deal was rejected by the judge. He was not sentenced for anything to do with the Wagner.