Two hour interview with.... Bill Mastro

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Snowman

What does the indictment have to do with this conversation? You can put whatever you want in an indictment. What matters is what he was actually found guilty of and sentenced for. That's what we're talking about. Show me where I can find something along the lines of the jury saying "As to count #11, we the jury find the charge of the defendant trimming the Honus Wagner baseball card and failing to disclose said alteration upon selling it: GUILTY".

You can't because it didn't happen.

I'm not saying it wasn't brought up at trial. I'm saying he wasn't sentenced for it and he didn't go to prison for it.

You have no clue Travis. Geez. Stop moving the goalposts. You claimed he wasn't CHARGED with it. Post 91 and many prior posts to the same effect. The indictment is precisely the document that sets out the CHARGES against him. So yes, he was CHARGED with it. The indictment has everything to do with this conversation. He then pleaded guilty to the one count indictment which included this CHARGE and was sentenced. There was no trial and no jury because he pleaded GUILTY. If you actually listened instead of just argued from ignorance and ego you might understand this better.

Recall that in the prior thread your ridiculous theory was that Mastro himself injected this into the case to win brownie points.

[Peter_Spaeth]

BTW, as to your statement that you can put anything you want in an indictment (you clearly know a lot about the law lol), the indictment was returned in this case by a federal grand jury after months of work and presentation of evidence. And lo and behold, the FBI press release describing the unsealed indictment also talks about the damn Wagner.

https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/ch...r-collectibles

[Lorewalker]

A definition of the word indictment:

a formal written statement prepared by a prosecuting authority charging a person with a crime and returned by a jury (such as a grand jury) upon finding that sufficient evidence to support it was presented.

Clearly it was part of the charges/accusations and no lawyer would say otherwise. As to his sentencing docs I have read...ok browsed...I did not see a breakdown of charges with the associated time he would serve so I (non lawyer) cannot speak to how much of his jail time was due to the Wagner but the trimming and the failure to disclose the trimming were part of the charges.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Lorewalker

A definition of the word indictment:

a formal written statement prepared by a prosecuting authority charging a person with a crime and returned by a jury (such as a grand jury) upon finding that sufficient evidence to support it was presented.

Clearly it was part of the charges/accusations and no lawyer would say otherwise. As to his sentencing docs I have read...ok browsed...I did not see a breakdown of charges with the associated time he would serve so I (non lawyer) cannot speak to how much of his jail time was due to the Wagner but the trimming and the failure to disclose the trimming were part of the charges.

Sorry Chase, you left out the part where you can put anything you want in it.

[calvindog]

Reading this is akin to listening to fingernails across a blackboard. Travis -- stop. Please. Bill was sentenced for any and all of his bad conduct in the indictment to which he pled guilty. He was a cooperator with the feds and ate the entire indictment. His PLEA AGREEMENT SPECIFICALLY MENTIONED HIS FRAUD IN CONNECTION WITH THE TRIMMED WAGNER ON PAGES 12-14. He was charged with it, he specifically pled guilty to the fraud re the Wagner. It is a public document. He had a 30 page plea agreement and 15.5 pages of it described his many frauds.

Most of his bad acts related to shill bidding -- in essence, creating hidden reserves to drive the prices of Mastro lots up. In that ridiculous, idiotic interview, I believe he was shaking his head and smiling with derision when the interviewer claimed that auction houses which LEGALLY bid on lots were bad -- Mastro did it ILLEGALLY. He used fake names as bidders, employees, dead people and even a priest if I recall.

He also ran up, along with his co-conspirators, a religious Jewish bidder who they knew couldn't bid at the auction close as he observed Shabbat. So they looked at his ceiling bids and ran them all to the top. Was the shill bidding worse than the Wagner fraud? Yes, no, maybe -- but the judge knew of all of it, along with Mastro's cooperation against his friends. Again, he paid $0 back to his victims. Unless you sued Mastro, you didn't get back any of the money he stole from you.

[Lorewalker]

Originally Posted by calvindog

Reading this is akin to listening to fingernails across a blackboard. Travis -- stop. Please. Bill was sentenced for any and all of his bad conduct in the indictment to which he pled guilty. He was a cooperator with the feds and ate the entire indictment. His PLEA AGREEMENT SPECIFICALLY MENTIONED HIS FRAUD IN CONNECTION WITH THE TRIMMED WAGNER ON PAGES 12-14. He was charged with it, he specifically pled guilty to the fraud re the Wagner. It is a public document. He had a 30 page plea agreement and 15.5 pages of it described his many frauds.

Maybe you and Peter are mistaken??? Per Travis: "And there are numerous lawyers in the hobby that disagree with his take as well."

[Snowman]

Yes Peter, you can charge someone with whatever the hell charges you want in an indictment. Obviously, some threshold has to be met, but just because something is listed on an indictment doesn't mean they are guilty of said charges. Hence in a trial, the jury gives verdicts for each charge.

If you want to argue that he went to prison for trimming/selling the Wagner because he struck a plea deal and it never went to trial, then fine. But that's something different from what I'm talking about and you know it.

Find me a single court case where someone was charged with and convicted BY A JURY for altering and/or selling an altered baseball card. I'll wait...

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Yes Peter, you can charge someone with whatever the hell charges you want in an indictment. Obviously, some threshold has to be met, but just because something is listed on an indictment doesn't mean they are guilty of said charges. Hence in a trial, the jury gives verdicts for each charge.

If you want to argue that he went to prison for trimming/selling the Wagner because he struck a plea deal and it never went to trial, then fine. But that's something different from what I'm talking about and you know it.

Find me a single court case where someone was charged with and convicted BY A JURY for altering and/or selling an altered baseball card. I'll wait...

You keep moving the goalposts. I cannot have an intelligent discussion with you. First you said he wasn't charged with it. Then you said he wasn't convicted of it. Now you want an example of a jury verdict, even though legally it's the same thing as a guilty plea, where SOMEONE ELSE was convicted. I never said I knew cases where a jury had convicted anyone of a charge related to trimming or concealment of trimming. Most criminal cases don't go to trial. I have been talking exclusively about the Mastro case, and so have you until you just shifted the goalposts yet again because every single thing you postulate has been proven to be wrong. So where are all these "lawyers in the hobby" who disagree with my take on the MASTRO CASE?

Are you that ego invested that you can't just see that you were wrong, and move on?

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

You keep moving the goalposts. I cannot have an intelligent discussion with you. First you said he wasn't charged with it. Then you said he wasn't convicted of it. Now you want an example of a jury verdict, even though legally it's the same thing as a guilty plea, where SOMEONE ELSE was convicted. I never said I knew cases where a jury had convicted anyone of a charge related to trimming or concealment of trimming. Most criminal cases don't go to trial. I have been talking exclusively about the Mastro case, and so have you until you just shifted the goalposts yet again because every single thing you postulate has been proven to be wrong. So where are all these "lawyers in the hobby" who disagree with my take on the MASTRO CASE?

Are you that ego invested that you can't just see that you were wrong, and move on?

No YOU keep moving my goal posts. I said "charged and convicted" not just "charged". My point in the earlier thread and still to this day has always been that no one has ever been charged with and convicted of altering a sports card. You were the one who then brought up the Mastro case as your example to tell me that I'm wrong. But it's materially different and you know it.

Lawyers stack indictments full of charges that they know won't stick all the time Peter. They use it as leverage to try to get a plea deal. You can't then point to a plea deal agreement and say that everything listed in it is why someone went to prison. Some of those charges would have stuck, some of them wouldn't.

Remember, this whole discussion all started from the trimming scandal involving PWCC, Gary Moser, et al. I said from the begging that nobody was going to prison for any of it. You told me I was an idiot and that the FBI doesn't take up cases like this without very good reasons. I laughed at you. You laughed at me and called me ignorant. But I'm sure those charges are coming... Any day now... Any day now...

[Peter_Spaeth]

A guilty plea is a conviction. And he specifically admitted it in pleading guilty. Here is a quote from his sentencing memorandum.

2 Although the vast majority of the offense conduct concerns shill bidding, Bill has also accepted responsibility
for his role in the sales of two authentic items whose condition or appearance was altered. First, Bill
acknowledged having personally altered one item, the T-206 Honus Wagner card, by cutting its side borders.
(Plea Agr. (Doc. No. 99) at 12-13). Bill voluntarily waived the statute of limitations to acknowledge this
conduct. Although the Wagner card was authentic, Bill was not honest about the alteration when he sold it and
for years afterward. Bill has now fully disclosed and accepted responsibility for the alteration, and the Wagner
card remains one of the most valued items of sports memorabilia, having resold since these allegations became
widely publicized for its highest price ever. The Government agrees that Bill’s conduct related to the Wagner
card did not involve any loss for Guidelines purposes. (Id. at 13-14).

So he's charged with it, he specifically admits to it and pleads guilty to it, but it somehow doesn't count because there was no jury trial? Alternate reality.

BTW you said he wasn't "charged" multiple times. Start with 83 and 91. Sure you also said he wasn't sentenced, but you objected to BOTH propositions, not just the latter.

PS my goalposts are exactly where they have been. Mastro was charged, admitted it, and pled guilty, to the Wagner offense among other things.