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Ex-Mastro Auctions president facing 4-plus years in prison

Ex-Mastro Auctions president facing 4-plus years in prison

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Former Mastro Auctions president Doug Allen back in the good old days, before the arrests, trials and possible prison terms.Roberts, Matthew,,freelance

Former Mastro Auctions president Doug Allen back in the good old days, before the arrests, trials and possible prison terms.

Sports memorabilia executive Doug Allen is learning that it is not a good idea to piss off the Justice Department.

Prosecutors filed papers in Chicago federal court Monday asking a judge to sentence Allen, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud in 2014, to 57 months in prison because of the former Mastro Auctions president’s “outright contempt” for law enforcement.

The feds say the stiff sentence — nearly three times longer than the 20 months co-defendant Bill Mastro is now serving — is warranted because Allen attempted to obstruct an FBI investigation into fraud in sports memorabilia and continued to participate in the shill bidding scheme that was the downfall of what was once the industry’s most prominent auction house even after he learned the Illinois company was under investigation.

“Defendant’s participation in the instant fraud scheme for seven years demonstrates he has disrespect for the law,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Derek Owens and Steven J. Dollear wrote. “During that time, defendant had multiple opportunities to end the fraud but did not. Instead of stopping after he learned about the FBI investigation in 2007, defendant continued with the fraud scheme – which demonstrates little respect for the law.”

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Allen also continued to shill bid even after the Daily News reported in 2007 that Mastro Auctions was the target of an FBI investigation into fraud in the sports memorabilia industry, according to the filing.

Allen and former Mastro executive Mark Theotikos, who pleaded guilty to mail fraud in 2014, are scheduled to appear for sentencing Feb. 8 before U.S. District Judge Ronald Guzman in Chicago.

Defense attorneys filed papers last week asking Guzman to sentence Allen to 18 months in prison, arguing that Mastro, the founder and chief executive of the company, was the mastermind of the shill bidding scheme. But the government’s response says Allen wasn’t just a Mastro underling, but an active participant in the fraud.

Prosecutors said at Allen’s 2014 plea hearing that they would ask Guzman to send the Mastro Auctions president to prison for more than 12 years because he attempted to obstruct the FBI investigation. The government said Allen, who had promised to cooperate with investigators in exchange for leniency, warned business associate John Rogers — also under investigation — that he would be wearing a wire for the FBI. Rogers later told the government that Allen had told him about the wire, which the feds say put agents who executed a search warrant at Rogers’ home at risk.

The filing also says Allen deserves the stiffer sentence because Allen, not Mastro, contacted collectors to sell what he purported to be an 1860 Cincinnati Red Stockings trophy ball and Elvis Presley after the items had been returned to the auction house because they had been proven to be fakes. Allen also instructed a card restorer to alter a rare and valuable T206 Eddie Plank card without notifying bidders. Altering cards is considered an egregious violation of hobby practices.

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The filing estimates the loss due to Allen’s crimes is more than $550,000 but less than $1.5 million. But the real damage will never be known because Mastro ordered an employee to destroy company records in 2003.

As the Daily News first reported this weekend, the victims of Mastro’s shill bidding include Yankee general managing partner Hal Steinbrenner and former ESPN and MSNBC broadcaster Keith Olbermann.

Mastro Auctions was the leading sports memorabilia auction house for most of the 1990s and 2000s, and it led the way as the company evolved from a mom-and-pop hobby into a sophisticated industry. The company went out of business in 2009 in the wake of the investigation led by the Chicago FBI.

Allen and Theotikos founded Legendary Auctions when Mastro Auctions became defunct. Mastro, Allen and Theotikos were named as defendants in an indictment returned by a Chicago grand jury in 2012.

Mastro, the brother of former New York City deputy mayor Randy Mastro, acknowledge in court that he had altered the world’s most expensive baseball card, the T206 Honus Wagner once owned by NHL legend Wayne Gretzky.

As two Daily News reporters wrote in their book “The Card,” the alteration increased the card’s value significantly and helped spark the sports memorabilia boom of the 1990s. The Wagner currently belongs to Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick, who paid a record $2.8 million for it in 2007.

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lawsuits ,
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chicago ,
illinois ,
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