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Dan Hajducky
A number of Authors
Two males pleaded responsible final week to federal expenses stemming from a 15-year operation that prosecutors mentioned bartered faux baseballs and bats purportedly signed by Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Honus Wagner and Cy Younger.
Brothers Donald and Mark Henkel, each Michigan residents, every pleaded responsible to 1 cost — mail fraud and wire fraud, respectively — based on paperwork filed with the U.S. District Court docket within the Northern District of Illinois. Prosecutors had alleged the lads used classic pens to forge signatures, created false provenances and used co-conspirators to pose as “straw sellers” who verified faux merchandise histories.
Of their plea agreements, the Henkel brothers admitted to devising and collaborating in “a scheme to defraud and to acquire cash from victims, together with artwork galleries, public sale homes, and particular person consumers … by the use of materially false and fraudulent pretenses and concealment of fabric info.” The paperwork cite examples during which the brothers created false provenances for baseballs or bats that they later bought for about $120,000. General, Donald and Mark Henkel admitted to fraudulent conduct that brought about $780,000 and $332,500, respectively, in monetary loss to victims. (An lawyer for a 3rd man going through federal expenses as a part of the alleged association instructed ESPN that “there’s at present no change of plea scheduled” for his consumer, Raymond Paparella. A standing listening to for his case is about for March 11.)
The case is one in every of a number of legal investigations into alleged memorabilia fraudsters which have compelled collectibles business corporations to look at and alter the practices that guarantee authenticity of things in the marketplace. Whereas collectibles fraud is not a brand new phenomenon, business specialists say fraudsters not too long ago have exploited an explosion in shopper curiosity in memorabilia because the pandemic, paired with the flexibility to promote faux materials throughout quite a lot of platforms.
“We’ve to be vigilant, we have now to remember,” mentioned Ryan Hoge, president of grading and authentication at Skilled Sports activities Authenticator (PSA). “And if [we] begin seeing completely different kinds or giant portions of one thing the place the model is barely off, we’ll circle the wagons.”
Hoge added that “the place there’s cash to be made,” alleged dangerous actors will discover a option to revenue.
Different alleged fraud instances
In February 2025, authorities in Indiana started investigating Mister Mancave LLC, a enterprise based by Brett Lemieux, who allegedly bought counterfeit sports activities memorabilia through a web-based retailer and different means. Westfield police mentioned they discovered a “vital” quantity of proof at his properties, together with documentation and different gadgets associated to the counterfeit operation.
Whereas he was being investigated, Lemieux wrote a web-based submit claiming to have bought greater than 4 million gadgets for greater than $350 million over the previous 20 years.
Within the submit, Lemieux mentioned he recreated holograms made by Fanatics, TriStar, James Spence Authentication (JSA), Panini and Steiner Sports activities. He additionally claimed to spend eight hours a day at an autopen machine forging signatures, faking Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, Barry Bonds and Willie Mays collectibles. He mentioned he “put out 80,000” fraudulent Kobe Bryant gadgets when Bryant died in 2020.
“Even when he did 10% or 20% of [what he claimed], it is nonetheless an insane quantity,” mentioned Steve Grad, a principal authenticator at Beckett Authentication Providers, which agreed to be acquired by PSA’s mother or father firm in December.
Shortly after Lemieux posted on social media, authorities discovered him lifeless of an obvious self-inflicted gunshot wound. The Westfield police instructed ESPN final week that the Lemieux case is “nonetheless being examined/analyzed” and that they’ve enlisted authentication corporations to overview seized gadgets, that are being held on the division.
“There have been tens of millions of {dollars} of gross sales with doubtlessly tens of hundreds of victims,” mentioned Westfield’s assistant chief of police Billy J. Adams. “The intent sooner or later is to have some sufferer fund — how that can be performed continues to be unknown, or whether it is even attainable.”
In a separate case, two people have been charged with trademark counterfeiting, a third-degree felony in Texas, in January 2025 after Collin County Sheriff’s Workplace investigators discovered “fictitious certificates of authentication and hundreds of sports activities memorabilia gadgets that have been falsely represented as real” at a house in McKinney, Texas.
Wendell Gidden-Rogers and Lisa Skolnick allegedly produced and bought counterfeit footballs, basketballs, baseballs, helmets and jerseys that had faux authentication stickers bearing the names of established corporations within the business, based on a lawsuit filed by Beckett in opposition to the 2 people in March 2025, alleging trademark infringement and different claims.
Beckett claimed that Gidden-Rogers and Skolnick appeared up serial numbers for sports activities gadgets authenticated by Beckett and recreated these gadgets by forging athlete signatures and making use of faux stickers with the serial quantity present in Beckett’s database. The people used a Ghostwriter autopen machine, which could be programmed to signal a celeb’s title, the lawsuit said.
The “fraudulent scheme of promoting faux sports activities memorabilia gadgets bearing counterfeits of the Beckett Marks and seal threatens to undermine not solely Beckett’s whole popularity, however all the sports activities memorabilia business,” Beckett mentioned within the lawsuit.
In November, a decide within the U.S. District Court docket of Japanese Texas ordered Gidden-Rodgers and Skolnick to pay Beckett practically $600,000 in damages and attorneys’ charges.
Attorneys for Gidden-Rogers and Skolnick, and for Beckett, didn’t reply to requests for remark.
“We’re all attempting to do higher by way of ensuring individuals know the stuff is real, however individuals like Brett and Wendell throw an enormous kink into it,” Grad mentioned.
Collectibles business response
Chris Ivy, Heritage Auctions’ director of sports activities auctions, referred to as the instances a “black eye” for the business and mentioned his firm spends “loads of time” vetting the memorabilia it consigns. Typically meaning utilizing photo-matching — a course of that matches fibers, threads, stains or tags to historic pictures archives — in addition to bodily inspecting and testing materials and inspecting autographs.
In consequence, about 20% to 30% of autographs do not go the corporate’s authentication course of and solely about 50% of game-worn gadgets make it to public sale, Ivy mentioned.
“If it is a game-used merchandise, if it will promote for $4,000 or much less, we’re most likely breaking even or shedding cash with the period of time we’re spending vetting,” Ivy mentioned.
Jason Masherah, president of The Higher Deck Firm, mentioned his firm spends “an inordinate period of time” patrolling fraud and copyright infringement.
“You are not simply watching eBay or card reveals,” he mentioned. “You are Fb Market, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, sending stop and desists, prosecuting counterfeiters frequently.”
Leaders at authentication corporations and public sale homes mentioned they make use of a spread of ways to fight fraud — generally in direct response to latest legal instances. The hologram sticker, they mentioned, is especially necessary to guard.
“Individuals see that hologram, if it is Fanatics or no matter, and they will purchase [an item] pondering it is actual,” Grad mentioned.
Zohar Ravid, Fanatics’ president of specialty enterprise and new ventures, mentioned the corporate’s fraud monitoring groups recognized Lemieux at the least two years in the past and contacted marketplaces to close down his accounts.
Across the similar time, Ravid mentioned, Fanatics modified its hologram. He mentioned Lemieux wasn’t the only real motive; the corporate had recognized different potential fraudsters and would have modified its hologram anyway. He mentioned that, to the corporate’s information, nobody has but been in a position to replicate the brand new hologram.
In 2021, Beckett Authentication Providers began to make use of tamper-proof holograms, just like those utilized by Main League Baseball’s authentication workforce. MLB makes use of self-destroying authentication stickers, which go away everlasting marks behind in an try and take away them.
Masherah mentioned the corporate makes use of matching holograms on its collectibles: “One on the merchandise and one on the certificates of authenticity. A big majority of the faux gadgets solely have the hologram on the merchandise, they by no means have the matching certificates. If you do not have each holograms, there’s an issue.”
Card grader PSA hyperlinks hologram certification numbers to photographs of the product; the corporate images each merchandise that comes into its amenities. Even so, to additional solidify the authentication course of, PSA’s Hoge encourages signers to autograph memorabilia on the firm’s headquarters, filmed by the corporate’s cameras.
“We’ve a large library of exemplar signatures so we are able to evaluate, take a look at time intervals, [see] how signatures evolve,” Hoge mentioned. “We’ve tight controls on our supplies, we do not use a community of third events — it is protecting tight stock controls on supplies that may very well be utilized in fraudulent methods.”
The arrival of the autopen has allowed fraudsters to generate mass quantities of faux materials. However James Spence III, vice chairman of JSA, mentioned autopens reproduce faux signatures nearly too completely.
“It will probably draw it on a baseball, a soccer helmet, I’ve seen it on golf Masters pin flags — and the autograph is ideal,” Spence mentioned. “But it surely’s not reside ink, it is not hand-signed. We have found out methods of detecting this.
“You signal your title 20 instances on a bit of paper and there is numerous variation. That is what we, authenticators, search for in figuring out validity in autographs.”
Different corporations have taken a extra drastic method to solidify authentication.
Metabilia, an organization that companions with NFL and NBA groups to promote game-used and autographed memorabilia, makes use of tamper-proof stickers outfitted with a tiny epoxy disc containing diamond nanoparticles.
“It is invisible to the conventional eye, it is its personal fingerprint,” mentioned Nicole Johnson, the co-founder of Metabilia. “It is indestructible.”
One other firm, MatchWornShirt, companions with soccer golf equipment — together with Paris Saint-Germain, Actual Madrid, Arsenal, Chelsea, AC Milan and Bayern Munich — and plenty of NBA groups to public sale game-worn, signed jerseys to collectors, straight off gamers. The corporate makes use of a chip embedded in jerseys that uploads a digital certificates of authenticity and match-worn info to prospects’ cell telephones.
One authentication firm, The Realest — based in 2023 by Los Angeles Rams in-house DJ Scott Keeney — makes use of a proprietary chemical resolution to determine its memorabilia. Different corporations are additionally exploring the chemical tactic.
Nick Cepero, chief government officer of Sports activities Dealer Collectibles and former head of memorabilia at PWCC Market, mentioned too many collectors do not do sufficient analysis earlier than shopping for. He recollects a home he visited in Texas the place, by his estimate, 99% of a collector’s 30,000 signatures have been faux.
“It is a tough dialog,” mentioned Cepero, a former consignment director at Heritage Auctions. “You see receipts: ‘I paid $3,000 in 1990 for a Babe Ruth autograph’ and now the corporate would not exist.”
Higher Deck’s Masherah mentioned he worries about how dangerous actors may reply to authenticity developments.
“The difficulty with stopping fraud is that, each time there’s cash concerned, the fraudsters at all times evolve,” he mentioned. “We have been loads of what we really feel is game-changing applied sciences … and fraudsters have already developed pathways for that.”
