6 Plead Guilty to Counterfeiting Sports Cards

SAN DIEGO —  Six people have pleaded guilty in a multimillion-dollar scheme to manufacture counterfeit sports trading cards, federal officials announced Wednesday.

The cards--mostly of stars such as Tony Gwynn, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and John Elway--are virtually identical to those manufactured by legitimate companies with licenses from professional sports leagues, officials said.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Phillip L.B. Halpern, the lead prosecutor, said authorities hope to stop the forgeries in the trading card market before the problem becomes as widespread as it is in the larger sports memorabilia market. The FBI says that 90% of sports artifacts and autographs sold to collectors are phony.

The sports card case is the final inning for Operation Bullpen, an investigation into fake sports memorabilia launched in San Diego, where many of suspects live.

Halpern said that by protecting the sports trading card business, the federal government is attempting to ensure “that the type of pure joy that people in this country experience [in buying sports cards] is not polluted by criminal activity.”

The scheme, Halpern said, involved a printing business in Gardena agreeing to print counterfeit versions of Topps sports cards. More than 100,000 cards were printed, half of which were seized by authorities before they could be shipped to dealers, according to indictments.

In some cases, dealers were unaware that the cards were fraudulent.

One of the cards in which the ring specialized was a 1983 card of Gwynn, who had then just broken into the major leagues with a splash. Because of his subsequent fame, and the rarity of authentic cards from that season, a genuine card can fetch more than $1,000.

Last year, two dozen people were indicted and convicted under Operation Bullpen. Including the card case, items worth more than $10 million were seized.

Some of those involved in the memorabilia scam were also part of the trading card conspiracy, authorities said. In both cases, sellers were shown what were purportedly certificates of authenticity in which experts attested to the legitimacy of the item.

One such firm called itself J. DiMaggio & Co. The San Marcos firm, however, was not connected to the family of the late Yankee superstar.

Among the items that J. DiMaggio & Co. asserted were authentic was a baseball allegedly signed by Mother Teresa. The certificate “was obviously not worth the paper it is written on,” said William Gore, FBI agent in charge of the San Diego office.

The six indicted in the card case were Jeffrey Bassman, 42, of Beverly Hills; Henry Benner, 55, of El Segundo; Wayne Alan Bray, 36, of San Marcos; Vincent Ferruccio, 67, of Pasadena; Barry Goldberg, 48, of Santa Ana; and Richard Laughlin, 56, of Mission Viejo.

Bray faces a possible 10-year sentence for tax evasion and conspiracy to commit fraud. The others face five-year sentences for conspiracy to commit fraud.

Gore said that although Operation Bullpen is completed, the government is ready to renew its investigation if “other individuals are waiting to begin where these offenders left off.”