Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth
I have no idea about the status of the FBI investigation. Certainly, we have seen these things take even longer, you may recall that the indictment only came down recently for the T206 forgeries that happened if memory serves five or so years ago. I also speculate, and it's pure speculation, that if it had ended with no action, certain people would have been proclaiming their innocence in public. But again, I have no idea.
One of the three BODA guys is still active. I suspect the others just got back to their lives, it was a huge commitment of time and effort, all unpaid.
In my judgment a card doctor could not insulate himself from mail/wire fraud by arranging for someone else to make the sale, any more than the fact that the card doctor defrauded a TPG would somehow be a defense. The card doctor/consignor is still directly responsible for the misrepresentation/omission assuming he doesn't disclose it to the seller. I haven't researched it but I have to believe the statute would reach that. The AH or other seller, on the other hand, if innocent, and that's debatable in many of these situations, would not have the necessary mens rea to be guilty of a crime.
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I agree with your thinking, but was wondering from the legal side if you thought/knew there was possibly some specific ambiguity(ies) in the law that could potentially keep prosecutors from reaching that "beyond a reasonable doubt" level in juror's minds. Given all the inconsistencies and such as are in this hobby, a non-collector in looking at a lot of what we've come to accept as normal would likely laugh and roll their eyes at us collecting nerds.
And you're probably right about the FBI still being in the midst of investigating. No one has been, or looks to currently be, in danger of any physical harm or violence, so timing isn't as critical for the FBI to stop someone in this case. And the potential theft/loss some people may have initially incurred, when buying these altered cards from the card doctors selling them, could have been (and very likely was) quickly turned around and negated if and when these initial victims later turned around and then unknowingly resold these altered/doctored cards to other unsuspecting victims. In many cases for possibly even bigger profits and amounts than the card doctors got away with to start, given the huge jump in card prices in recent years.
And that leads to another question concerning such fraud. I know in the case of a card's theft, if after the theft the card changes hands a few times involving unsuspecting and innocent buyers, that card, if later discovered by authorities to have been taken in a theft, can forcibly be taken from the then current owner, and rightfully returned to the original theft victim. What would happen in a fraud case to the then current unsuspecting and innocent owner of a valuable card if it suddenly was discovered and came out during a trial of the person that originally doctored/altered the card that their card they now owned had been altered, and was now worth thousands of dollars less than they paid for it? And to further complicate things, the altered card you now own had changed hands several times after the initial sale by the card doctor, right after he first altered the card and then got it erroneously graded by some TPG. There's no theft victim for the card to be returned to, so without question you own the card. But now that its alterations are outed and you know it, you can't sell it to anyone else without fully disclosing those alterations (unless you now want to potentially be liable for fraud also). So say you do sell it, after properly disclosing the alterations, and lose your ass on it. What actual legal recourse(s) do you have, if any? Can you go back against the also innocent person/dealer you bought it from, or do you go back against the original card doctor? And what about the TPG that improperly graded it, can you just go back at them assuming they don't voluntarily make you whole for their original mistake, even though you never dealt with them personally in regard to getting the card graded? Or is this TPG issue further complicated by having to now go back and read, decipher, and interpret the various agreements and contracts that were signed and entered into at the time the card in question was graded, even though you were never involved nor signed or agreed to anything with the particular TPG that graded your card? Or are you just SOL, get hit with the loss, and can only end up checking with whatever insurance coverages you might have to see if by some miracle one of them will agree to cover and pay you at least something for your loss?
And I'm asking this as a very serious question, as given the presumed decades over which card doctors are believed to have been operating, and the unfathomable number of altered cards thought to be out in the hobby market/community today, the chances for any of us with even just a somewhat modest collection of graded cards to unknowingly have an altered card or two in our personal collections is a lot stronger than I know I'd ever care for it to be. I'm guessing the possibility of ever catching and really outing a truly significant percentage of these altered cards in the hobby is virtually nil. Despite the best efforts of the BODA/Blowout guys, they're probably lucky if they've even scratched the surface on what altered stuff is out there. But having said all that, who knows if the FBI investigation does not one day pan out, and they nail one of these card doctors, who then in cooperation with the feds to hopefully lessen their punishment and sentence turns over records and documentation of literally thousands of cards they've altered over the years, along with which TPG slabs (and cert #s) they got those cards into. So, in case something like that ever came to be, I know I'd like to be aware of my potential recourse options if I suddenly found cards I owned on such an outed list.
Any good thoughts, comments or legal advice in regard to the above?