Operation Bullpen

     Posted March 19, 2010. Elmore Leonard and I have something in common, although that something, unfortunately, is not the size of our respective bank accounts. His has many more zeroes in it. Nevertheless we are brothers in literary crime-that is, we both write about crime, his being of a fictional sort and mine being true life.

     My book, Operation Bullpen: The Inside Story of the Biggest Forgery Scam in American History, which has been sold to the movies, is the true story of a gang of grown-up Southern California dead-end kids who found a way to make money fall from the sky by forging the signatures of the likes of Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and yes, Mother Teresa on baseballs, photos and more and selling them for untold millions on eBay and the TV home shopping channels.

     The book was published in 2006 and I swear I thought that would be the end of my crime-writing career. Happily though, it has not turned out that way. I am still writing and blogging about forgery and the fellows (it is almost exclusively a male pastime) who do it and sell it. As a result I know several FBI agents and federal investigators on a first-name basis. I also occasionally chat with various characters of dubious reputation who would be perfectly at home in an Elmore Leonard novel although they are, of course, actual human beings, not fictional creations. Remember the big O.J. Simpson brouhaha a few years ago when O.J. robbed some people in a Vegas hotel room to get some of his sports memorabilia back? The guy whose hotel room it was, and who ultimately testified in the trial that sent Simpson to prison, was Tom Riccio. One Sunday morning when I was in my pajamas Riccio called me to hear my opinion on something. Nice fella, actually, for a two-time ex-con.

     Anyhow I mostly don't write about forgery in this space except that in this case, I thought some of you might enjoy this piece. Any fans of "The Real Housewives of Orange County" out there? Okay, well, maybe not. But it turns out that one of the people on the show, Jim Bellino, who is married to the bosomy blonde Alexis, was also investigated by the FBI in Operation Bullpen. For your entertainment pleasure, here is my post on Bellino (which can also be found on operationbulpen.com as well as the industry-leading website of Autograph Magazine, where I usually post my forgery stuff):    

JIM BELLINO: REALITY TV STAR AND COUNTERFEIT AUTHENTICATOR

BY KEVIN NELSON. March 19, 2010. Of all the crooks in the crooked memorabilia racket, the hardest ones to catch are authenticators of dubious repute. If you doubt this, consider the case of Jim Bellino, a former authenticator who was the target of an FBI investigation during Operation Bullpen and who is now appearing on a reality television series, "The Real Housewives of Orange County."

Described by Bravo TV as "a self-made entrepreneur and businessman," Bellino is certainly all that and more. He is married to Alexis, one of the Orange County housewives, both pictured here. Since his appearance on the show, he has become the focus of Internet gossip for his past activities in the memorabilia business. I wrote about Bellino in my book, Operation Bullpen: The Inside Story of the Biggest Forgery Scam in American History, and I have spoken many times with the FBI agents who investigated him.

"He was close mouthed, a tough cookie to crack," said John Ferreira, the FBI undercover agent who posed as a memorabilia dealer and bought thousands of dollars of fake Babe Ruth-signed baseballs and other forged material from Bellino.

Based in the city of Orange in Orange County, Bellino ran a company called Forensic Document Services, which authenticated-that is, certified as legitimate-fake autographs produced by Greg Marino and other forgers who were part of the national ring that ripped off American consumers for $100 million before the FBI brought their fun to an end in 1999.

The Chicago FBI first identified Bellino as a subject of interest, and later the San Diego FBI probed his activities in Operation Bullpen. According to Tim Fitzsimmons, the FBI case agent who oversaw Bullpen and Ferreira's undercover investigation, Forensic Document Services was certifying "ungodly" amounts of forgeries and then selling them.

The FBI, in fact, combined with slugger Mark McGwire, then playing for the St. Louis Cardinals, to concoct an elaborate scheme to see if they could get Bellino to admit, on tape, that he was selling forgeries. "The scheme," as I write in my book, "had a few steps to it."

First Ferreira wrote and signed a $20,000 check made out to McGwire's charitable foundation for children. He never made this contribution; it was a sham. On the memo line of the check, it read, "Charity." The FBI made a poster-sized copy of the check so it was big enough for two people to hold and the names and the amount could be seen clearly. Ferreira and Fitzsimmons then drove up to the Long Beach office of Jim Milner, McGwire's business agent who managed the foundation and was also in on the scheme. Milner and Ferreira held the check between them and smiled as Fitzsimmons took a picture of them. Additionally, Milner composed a letter on foundation stationery, later signed by McGwire, thanking Ferreira for his generous gift.

The FBI then arranged for Ferreira and McGwire to pose for a picture together, which further bolstered Ferreira's cover and lent him legitimacy (it was hoped) in Bellino's eyes. With all this material in hand, Ferreira, secretly wired with recording equipment, paid a visit to Bellino at his office in Orange:

The feds next moved to their target. Since Ferreira's usual demeanor had been a bust with Bellino, his colleagues argued for a change in approach-harder, tougher, more like a criminal. The ever-agreeable UCA said he'd give it a whirl, and on his next visit to Forensic Document Services he came on like a major asshole. Swearing and bragging and dropping the f-word all over the place and parading around with the two signed McGwire balls and the pictures of him and McGwire and him and Milner with the $20,000 check, Ferreira said he knew that all the garbage he was buying was bad and that all his customers knew it too. So to cover his ass he had dumped a load of money into Big Mac's foundation. You know, to help the kids. All that crap.

Trying to close the deal, Ferreira told Bellino he should do the same-make a donation-because he was dealing lots of forgeries too, right?

If he was, he wouldn't say. The cookie still would not crumble. All this tough talk made Bellino nervous or, as the agent put it, "hinked up." Failing once more to crack his subject, Ferreira took his balls and photos and left, and the hinked-up owner of Forensic Document Services was undoubtedly happy to see him go.

Despite all the effort the FBI put into investigating Bellino, the cookie never did crumble. He never admitted anything on tape because, he said, he was innocent. He was not selling forgeries. One last excerpt from my book:

Though his authentication firm, Forensic Document Services, closed its doors after the bust, Bellino told a reporter that he was "neither tried nor convicted of any crime because I never would knowingly buy or sell an illegitimate or forged autograph." Feeling sure he would be vindicated if his case went to trial, he declined to take the matter to court, citing the high cost of litigation and the length of time involved. Instead he accepted a deal with the government that gave him probation and expunged his record. He cannot, however, return to the memorabilia business without obtaining an order from the court.

 In the FBI's informal list of Bullpen subjects and the sentences they received, this is what it said about Bellino: "charged/probation/expunge/ban." In other words, the feds barely laid a glove on him.

Autograph authentication remains an imprecise science and a rather dodgy one at that. For an authenticator only gives his opinion on whether a signature is legitimate or not, and as the FBI concedes-and the certificate itself states-his opinion may be wrong. So since it's only his opinion, an authenticator can certify "ungodly" amounts of fraudulent material and it's still very, very tough for investigators to prove in court that he is breaking the law.

Pretty nifty little racket, no? Sounds like it might make a good reality TV series.

Kevin Nelson is the author of Operation Bullpen: The Inside Story of the Biggest Forgery Scam in American History. Contact him here.