Coach's Corner - The Perfect Crime?

[sports-rings]

I am just amazed that as time goes by (and I am talking years and years), the people involved in the Coach's Corner crimes run free and unpunished.

So, I wish to ask others, have they developed and executed "the perfect crime"?

They advertised for years and grew their business through Sports Collecters Digest. I fought SCD as hard as I could to drop them as an advertiser. They didn't drop them for many years.

I suggested on this site a few months ago, perhaps a class action suit would work. No one ever starts one. (I would think that auction houses would do want to do this as Coaches Corner ruins the hobby by reducing prices, floods the market with fakes, drives collectors from the hobby who learn their items bought from CC are workthless). I would also think collectos and those that have purchased from CC would do this.

The PA Attorney general, the Postal Inspectors and the FBI as far as I know have done nothing either.

Is it possible that Lee, his business parnters and their trusted authenticators are so tight knit, that they will never turn on each other? Is it possible that Lee, and his henchmen are so tight that their secret dealings never are discussed with anyone outside their circle?

The latest instance of their perfect crime: They are using the Steiner name by photo-copying the Steiner certificate that came with a chair and incorportating it into display peices.

I am tired of asking for this nightmare to end, so my post today asks, is this "the perfect crime" and no one will be able to stop them?

My belief that a class auction suit would work, but I was told this is too much money. If we all figured out how much this company costs our hobby, I wold imagine we could fund our money together and do something. I would be first in line to contribute money.

[canjond]

I'll be honest... I doubt a class action would work.

[barrysloate]

Well they've certainly figured out how to make their business model work.

[scooter729]

I would think Steiner would be plenty interested in exploring this if they are using copies of Steiner certs to sell their garbage - that's going to lessen the Steiner name and potentially cause Steiner to lose business, so I'm sure they would love to hear about that....

[canjond]

Is CC being quasi-misleading in describing the Steiner certificate, yes... but the item state that an authentic piece of Yankee stadium seating is attached to the plaque (which it is). A copy of the Steiner certificate attesting to the authenticity of the chair is included. Reading quickly, a bidder may assume that the garbage auto is authenticated by Steiner, but CC's description does clearly state only the seat piece is.

Believe me, I hate defending these guys, but I'm not sure Steiner can do anything about what CC is doing. CC is not lying in their descriptions.

[thetruthisoutthere]

Originally Posted by canjond

Is CC being quasi-misleading in describing the Steiner certificate, yes... but the item state that an authentic piece of Yankee stadium seating is attached to the plaque (which it is). A copy of the Steiner certificate attesting to the authenticity of the chair is included. Reading quickly, a bidder may assume that the garbage auto is authenticated by Steiner, but CC's description does clearly state only the seat piece is.

Believe me, I hate defending these guys, but I'm not sure Steiner can do anything about what CC is doing. CC is not lying in their descriptions.

I agree with, Jon. They (Coach's Commode) are simply coupling a legitimate piece of a Yankee Stadium seat (with a Steiner COA) with 100% forgeries.

A few of the buyers of that crap always try to flip them on Ebay but they eventually get removed because the autographs are so horrid.

[pow323]

It is the world that we live in today! What is wrong is right and what is right is wrong!!

[vintagechris]

I get SPAM from them all the time. By law, I believe they are required to list their address and also the option to opt out of mailings. They do neither. I have even emailed them to remove me. Is there any way to get them in trouble with the law for spamming?

I don't even know how I got on their list. I have never nor would I ever buy anything from them.

If anybody thinks it would be possible and knows how to cause them legal trouble for spamming, I think I have about two or three years worth of emails saved from them, all SPAM as described by the law if I am understanding what SPAM actually is.

[mr2686]

I believe the only way to get at CC, is to prove that they have knowledge that their items are not authentic. Since we're dealing with products that have "opinions" that they are authentic, CC stays in the clear. What really needs to happen is to convict a person or persons that is forging these items and having them admit that CC not only knows about it, but is also commissioning these items (if that indeed is happening). Right now I think the best bet is going after these bogus experts that are authenticating this junk.

[Leon]

I think what they do is just as is being said. They take their crappy business practices right to the edge of being unlawful and don't go over it. Believe me, if it was illegal, what they are doing, the law would have come down on them. You can't dispute them only having an opinion. The FBI reads this board regularly and I believe they are still investigating the hobby. If there was a Federal crime being committed, with serious fraud going on that can be proven, then it would be taken care of. Coaches Corner is fairly smart in the way the operate. Don't get me wrong, I can't stand it, but I doubt they are doing too much that could be proven illegal. And again, you can't sue them for giving their opinion something is real, even if it isn't. It's their opinion. It's the suckers that believe their opinion that are giving them their business model and it's a shame. regards

[slidekellyslide]

Opinion or not they KNOW they are peddling forgeries...some of the items they sell can't possibly exist as real..ie 1960s manufactured baseballs signed by Ruth, et cetera. The FBI should be cracking down on these idiots...if they can go into Mastro to try and get their bidder records to prove shilling then they should have cause to go into CC and get their consignor records and find out who is making this crap. It's infuriating that this operation has been allowed to continue unabated for this long.

I asked this question before and didn't get much in the way of a response: If you buy a forgery from them, sue them and bring experts to court who agree it's a forgery, and the court agrees you've been sold a forgery - can you not then require them to divulge the consignor? And if you did this a few times, and the consignors were always the same group of guys, and there was no realistic, proveable provenance for the items, couldn't that lead to a bigger action of some sort?

[jt39]

If you can pardon the overly lawyerly post that follows, I've offered a few off the cuff thoughts on this (not legal advice in any manner, and totally hypothetical based on what people have said in the thread):

Though this is a relatively small, non-traditional target for class action (which would make it tough to find a lawyer, I'd think), class action doesn't strike me as totally implausible here -- may make sense to define the class in relation to a particularly egregious authenticator(s) and name them as well. The # and type of items sold is easy enough to identify and plead, and you can pick and choose amongst items so as to define the most desirable class -- one which is sufficiently large, sufficiently easy to connect (e.g. signatures of certain oft-sold players), etc. Finding a lead plaintiff may not be too tough since anyone buying the stuff is already on the internet and I'm sure plenty have complained over the years. They need to have been genuinely swindled though. Find an expert who can attest that all of the autographs in question are fakes and then list them in the complaint (here again, their internet presence really helps with pleading sufficiently specific facts -- you could even list out auction #'s and include pictures of the items in question).

The real kicker would be identifying the sources of the purported memorabilia. Detective work on this can't be too tough -- where do packages to the bad authenticators come from? Do trucks pull up to/drive away from, say, this Morales guy's office that someone can follow? I'm obviously not giving any kind of advice to pursue such actions, which are undoubtedly more appropriate for governmental authorities and would require careful scrutiny from an attorney before an individual pursued them. But if you could define the class as people who purchased items that were produced by Counterfeiter Doe, certified by Joe Authenticator, and sold by Coach's Corner, you'd be setting yourself up well on some major stumbling blocks to class action certification (commonality, typicality). Not to mention setting up a nice array of causes of action -- RICO, conspiracy to commit fraud, fraud, in addition to breach of contract. The whole point of conspiracy causes of action is to prevent illegal actors from avoiding the force of the law by craftily breaking up their criminal enterprise into separate parts, then claiming they are unrelated and hiding the connections. That is exactly what this is (hypothetically). If this is actually a conspiracy, some well-thought-out, yet totally legal for a non-governmental-official investigation may well uncover the type of info needed to survive a motion to dismiss.

I would note that there is nothing stopping a truly aggrieved individual from bringing a lawsuit relating to their own item. Sure, there may not be a ton of money in it and that may make it hard to find a lawyer, but if someone is pissed enough, and/or spent enough money, it would be much easier to get a case off the ground (and, most importantly, gain access to discovery from the company) if the case was brought by an individual. Of course, you'd face a fight on the scope of discovery, but you'd have a good chance at getting at the juicy info on the connection points in the alleged scheme. May not get a lot of $$$ in the first case (unless you can win punitives), but would be doing a ton of damage to their (hypothetical) criminal enterprise -- if any nasty info gets brought to light, the whole house of cards may well come down.

Finally, someone mentioned that they only trade on "opinions," they don't actually assert that the items are legit. First, that's why you bring in the authenticator. Second, you can allege (and seek to prove) that they know the items are fake, and that they know that the authenticator knows the items are fake -- and therefore that withholding that information and passing them off as items for which an authenticator has issued an "opinion" of veracity is itself a misrepresentation. Now, fraud has heightened pleading requirements (i.e., you have to allege more specific facts in your suit ... can't just say "he lied!"). But an individual asserting breach of contract on that basis may well be able to go after this as a misrepresentation without meeting that burden. (I.e., you contracted for an item that was truly "a baseball that Joe Authenticator has opined was signed by Mickey Mantle," when in fact what you got was "a baseball that Coach's Corner knew was a fake and which it knew had been counterfeited and which it knew had been knowingly fraudulently designated as real by Joe Authenticator".)

[sports-rings]

I get SPAM from them all the time. By law, I believe they are required to list their address and also the option to opt out of mailings. They do neither. I have even emailed them to remove me. Is there any way to get them in trouble with the law for spamming?

You can report the emails to spamcop.net

They will handle contacting the appropriate network administrator and if the spam continues, they will black-list the spammer and send the name of the spammer to many of the large isp's.

[sports-rings]

May not get a lot of $$$ in the first case (unless you can win punitives), but would be doing a ton of damage to their (hypothetical) criminal enterprise -- if any nasty info gets brought to light, the whole house of cards may well come down.

Here's what I don't get: I read this week that MLB warned a NJ company to stop selling Jeter autographs that they paid him to sign on "3,000 hit balls"... A few weeks ago I read that Memory Lane was suing classmates.com for using the words "Memory Lane" in their marketing and web site.

You would think, in the big business of sports auctions, a company like Heritage (that has a staff of lawyers) or some of the other big auction houses in our hobby would step up and do something on this matter in a court of law.

[bbcard1]

If I were in the FBI, I would want to be one of the agents who investigates bad baseball memorabilia dealers and not one of the guys who have to knock heads with Al Capone wannabes. I have a wife and kids...

[Leon]

Great post jt39. Much appreciated. Since I am a strong "supporter" of the FBI's investigation into the hobby I think I understand some of their reasoning on who/why they go after who they do. They can't go after every guy selling $5 fakes. That isn't how we would want our serious tax dollars used by them either. That is for a local police dept and local law enforcement. The CC Auctions meet a few of their criteria but probably not all of them, on their decision to go after them or not. There is almost no doubt they have been looked at though. As stated earlier, and if I remember correctly, it is because these are in fact "opinions" of their experts as to the reason the case would be a tough nut to crack, notwithstanding the comments above. How many times do we see differing expert testimony in court? From what I have seen, as an ordinary layperson, things get pretty muddied up when you have all sorts of experts claiming different outcomes of authentication. I just don't think the FBI wants to go there. Now, if someone can show where CC unequivocally ripped someone off for 150k, and it's an open and shut case not involving only an "opinion", then maybe they would take a more formal look. Also, it's not the FBI themselves that bring charges, they just give their information to the US District Attorney and then they make the decision to indict or not. I might get some clarification on this and come back to this thread with it....but I am fairly confident what I say is true, even if it's not well received. Don't get me wrong, I too know it's obvious that a Cap Anson signed ball shouldn't go for 1/50th of market price, but what can you do if people believe CC's "experts"? It's a shame people don't do their homework and then CC would be out of business and we wouldn't have to discuss their situation.

[earlywynnfan]

I would think the "larger" "legitimate" auction houses wouldn't sue CC because then they would be forced to open up their own business practices for intense scrutiny.

Ken
earlywynnfan5@hotmail.com

[jt39]

You would think, in the big business of sports auctions, a company like Heritage (that has a staff of lawyers) or some of the other big auction houses in our hobby would step up and do something on this matter in a court of law.

The problem here is that they don't have a private right of action to bring. Even if Coach's Corner has used bad tactics in a way that undermines the business done by legitimate auction houses, it is highly unlikely that it rises to the level of a tort. (Check wikipedia for "tort law" for general reference.) And unlike purchasers of the products, there is no contractual relationship to base a suit on.

As stated earlier, and if I remember correctly, it is because these are in fact "opinions" of their experts as to the reason the case would be a tough nut to crack, notwithstanding the comments above. How many times do we see differing expert testimony in court? From what I have seen, as an ordinary layperson, things get pretty muddied up when you have all sorts of experts claiming different outcomes of authentication.

No question about it, there will be experts on the other side if this matter ever sees a courtroom. Seems you can find an expert who will say just about anything -- it comes down to how good their analysis is, how well it is presented, and how credible they are. But the battle of the experts would undoubtedly be the central issue.

That is why I emphasized the importance of finding the source of the forged materials. I think it is highly likely that they come from several common sources. If you can find them (should be easy enough by seeking records of who has consigned and then subpoenaing/deposing them), and show that they aren't sitting on some treasure trove of old Mickey Mantle autographed balls, but are, rather, signing them themselves by the hundreds, then it becomes a much harder argument for their expert to make that they are legit.

Food for thought, not legal advice.

[RichardSimon]

Originally Posted by jt39

That is why I emphasized the importance of finding the source of the forged materials. I think it is highly likely that they come from several common sources. If you can find them (should be easy enough by seeking records of who has consigned and then subpoenaing/deposing them), and show that they aren't sitting on some treasure trove of old Mickey Mantle autographed balls, but are, rather, signing them themselves by the hundreds, then it becomes a much harder argument for their expert to make that they are legit.

Food for thought, not legal advice.

I will refer once again to the e mail that was in circulation some time ago, in which alleged sources of CC material were named.
While the names were known to me, and 3 of the 4 did not surprise me at all, the e mail lacked any sort of proof.
So while C, M, and S may be the suppliers of CC, until someone can bring that proof to the government, it will be tough to take CC down.

[thetruthisoutthere]

Speaking of Coach's Corner Auctions.

http://www.myccsa.com/Lot/222/1939-h...-baseball.aspx

Gotta love the "Watter Johnson." Certified as genuine by Chris Morales, Forensic Investigator. Every signature penned by one person.

CC-Morales-11.jpg

[GrayGhost]

Those are so horrible. Anyone who has even a semi trained eye can not by the letter formation and way the autographs are spaced even, that they are all by the same hands, not just forgeries. I think his hand was twitching from too much Monster energy drink when he did the Walter. Look at how shaky it is. Too much work for them all at once. Scott and Lee need to give the forgers insurance or something. ...

And right off the bat, this BEAUTY. Not only does Morales certify it, but it has sold for 90,000 at auction!!! But, here at the Roaches, you can get it for a FRACTION, this high dollar beauty.

so much junk/fakery/crapola just from my first perusal of the loot.

[Jewish-collector]

It's very simple why nothing has been done. It's an unregulated business.

[GoldenAge50s]

I will almost repeat myself from the other thread:

If they couldn't get OJ---and Casey Anthony----what chance would they stand w/ CC? NONE!

[barrysloate]

Looks like the only way to stop them is for the people to stop bidding. But the lure of the bargain is too great, even in the face of impossible odds.

[Rickyy]

Originally Posted by thetruthisoutthere

Speaking of Coach's Corner Auctions.

http://www.myccsa.com/Lot/222/1939-h...-baseball.aspx

Gotta love the "Watter Johnson." Certified as genuine by Chris Morales, Forensic Investigator. Every signature penned by one person.

Attachment 42762

Yep the amazing thing about this ball is you don't have to even know these players autographs to know its signed by the same person...

[Mr. Zipper]

I'm not so certain that the FBI isn't doing anything. The fraud is so blatant, and it really is a poke in the eye to the FBI after Operation Bullpen... how could they not do something? But, these things take time -- maybe years.

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me this is a textbook criminal conspiracy.

I don't know what the legal terms are, but there seems to be willfull ignorance on the part of the owners. The authenticators cannot hide behind "it's my opinion" when there is a consistent pattern of behavior of being wrong 99% of the time.

It's only a matter of time before one of them makes a mistake and the black sedans show up at 5 a.m.

[J.McMurry]

I've been thinking this situation over,and now am wondering if CCA is not some elaborate system of distribution for fake merchandise to crooked dealers? During OP Bullpen,dealers sent lists to marino to fill that were so outrageous they pretty much proved the items were being manufactured by Marino. so what if you set up a "closed auction" where only insider crooked dealers can purchase the fake product through the disguise of an auction?

Crazy,..but truth is stranger than fiction.

[RobertGT]

One point lost in many of these discussions is the CC consignors. Most of the people on this board have a tendency to focus solely on CC (rightfully so), but who exactly is giving CC these obviously bad autographs?

I never gave the issue much thought (i'm not a big autograph guy) until I ran into a longtime dealer/collecting buddy of mine at a Pennsylvania auction recently. He told me CC has become the dumping ground of several reputable auction houses looking to dispose of their obviously bad material and sigs that flunk PSA/DNA & JSA. He cited one well-known auction house specifically (that I won't mention here) that routinely consigns items there almost every month.

I found this shocking.

[Vintagedegu]

-

[sports-rings]

CC has become the dumping ground of several reputable auction houses looking to dispose of their obviously bad material and sigs that flunk PSA/DNA & JSA. He cited one well-known auction house specifically (that I won't mention here) that routinely consigns items there almost every month.

I thought reputable auction houses should not consign their own items, or if they do, they should put that in the description (they never seem to do that). I had a great opportunity to buy a championship ring from the son of a well known player and then Heritage scooped in and purchased the ring from him. Later on, it was in their auction but no mention that they owned the ring.

[RichardSimon]

"CC has become the dumping ground of several reputable auction houses looking to dispose of their obviously bad material and sigs that flunk PSA/DNA & JSA. He cited one well-known auction house specifically (that I won't mention here) that routinely consigns items there almost every month."

Since when does well known equal reputable in the auction house business?

[Mr. Zipper]

Originally Posted by Vintagedegu

This is close to what I've been thinking lately. Basically, what are the odds of a) so many rare vintage signatures being consigned each month, and b) basically all of them poor fakes?

Occasionally they might have some modern stuff from legit sources, so I'm looking at big-name vintage only, the Ruths and Mathewsons and Clarksons and nonsense like that. What are the odds of being wrong almost 100% of the time, for years? I don't have any hard numbers, but anecdotally speaking it seems that way; some absurdly high number. Authentication via dartboard would yield more accurate results.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were better odds of being correct every time than of being wrong all the time, particularly with people experienced in the memorabilia business.

I don't know exactly what's going on over there, but it sure is weird.

Criminal conspiracy is what's going on.

The sheer volume and percentage of fakes nullifies any possible "oops, bad opinion" defense. A monkey with a 50/50 chance of picking good/bad would have a higher accuracy than they do.