Well, technically, Wednesday in fraud, but let us not quibble.
Brett Lemieux killed himself on Wednesday. He was 45.
Mr. Lemieux founded “MisterManCave”, a sports memorabilia site. I believe this is the site.
Before he killed himself, he made a post to Facebook claiming he’d sold “more than four million counterfeit items and surpassed $350 million in sales”. The Facebook account is down now, but the NYPost has an image of the post.
Lemieux was able to pull off the alleged large-scale counterfeit scheme by faking holograms, authentication stickers for sports collectibles, of some of the most prominent companies in sports memorabilia: Panini, Fanatics, Tri-Star, James Spence Authentics, Mill Creek Sports and GT Marketing, among others.
Lemieux would use the fake holograms to sell counterfeit memorabilia at a far lower price than the market, and he profited handsomely from that tactic.
In the Facebook post, Lemieux said he released 80,000 pieces of memorabilia into the market when Kobe Bryant died in 2020.
I care even less about sports memorabilia than I do about sports, but I am a connoisseur of fraud. And this is big fraud. I actually think this story is being underplayed right now: if Mr. Lemieux put four million counterfeit items out there on the memorabilia market with forged holograms, I think this is going to have a massive impact on the market.
“People have known about this guy. They’ve known his work. They know what he’s been up to,” well-known sports memorabilia expert Steve Grad told WRTV Indianapolis
“He has been at it for years and years. And he’s driven down the price of things. You know, you look at a Tom Brady autograph and Tom Brady’s value is affected drastically by this individual.”
But has anybody asked Ja Morant Guy for his opinion?
(“Ja Morant signed basketballs” on MisterManCave.)
Sightly more seriously, FotB RoadRich and I have been discussing the rules for crooks. It looks like Mr. Lemieux followed Rule 1: if you’re going to steal, steal big.
But it doesn’t look like he figured out Rule 2: have an exit plan. Steal enough money so you can live out the rest of your life comfortably in a country with no extradition treaty with the United States.
On a somewhat related to fraud note: Lloyd Howell resigned as executive director of the NFL Players Association on Thursday.
Howell’s tenure had come under scrutiny after several recent reports from ESPN and the “Pablo Torre Finds Out” podcast.
In May, ESPN reported that the FBI was investigating the financial dealings of the NFLPA and the MLB Players Association related to a multibillion-dollar group-licensing firm, OneTeam Partners. According to sources, the report triggered the NFLPA to hire Ronald C. Machen of law firm Wilmer Hale to review Howell’s activities as executive director. The FBI investigation, which is being conducted in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, New York, is continuing, sources said.
Even better, Mr. Howell’s expenses are being examined. In particular…the strippers. Always with the strippers.
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One receipt, obtained by ESPN, shows Howell was picked up in a sedan by a car service at Fort Lauderdale International Airport on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023, at 10:26 p.m. The car’s first stop was at a nearby Miami Gardens address. The receipt shows only one other stop, nearly eight hours later.
At 6 a.m., the car dropped off Howell at his luxury condominium in Sunny Isles Beach, the receipt shows.
Later, a union finance worker noticed the car service’s exorbitant cost. The employee searched online for the Miami Gardens address, discovering it was Tootsie’s Cabaret.
The 76,000-square-foot venue bills itself as the world’s largest strip club — “full nude No. 1 rated.”
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During this year’s NFLPA summit on Feb. 21, Howell accompanied the employees to the Magic City strip club for an outing that incurred $2,426 in charges including cash withdrawals, ranging from $200 to $525, from a club ATM, sources and documents show. They used two “VIP rooms.”
According to the expense report, the purpose of the strip club outing: “Player Engagement Event to support & grow our Union.”
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