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FBI Investigating American Royal Arts, Christopher Morales and Others Over Rock and Roll Forgeries

The rumors circulating autograph hobby are true. Since 2008, the New York Office of the FBI has been investigating Florida-based autograph and memorabilia gallery chain American Royal Arts and its owner, Jerry Gladstone, over the suspected trafficking in rock and roll forgeries. According to marketing claims by Gladstone, American Royal Arts was the world's largest seller of signed music memorabilia, specializing autographs of the Beatles, Elvis, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, the Eagles and other in-demand rock bands and artists.

The FBI typically doesn't publicly acknowledge or discuss an open investigation unless and until they issue arrest warrants. No arrest warrants have been issued that I'm aware of, and it's always possible that none will be. Nothing I'm discussing here has come directly from the FBI. Everything comes from our own investigation and interviews.

The FBI's more than 30 month investigation has grown to include ARA associates and authenticators, including forensic document examiners Christopher Morales and E'lyn Bryan, ARA's memorabilia suppliers, and others from Florida to Hawaii.

The FBI raided American Royal Arts' headquarters in Boca Raton, Fla., in late February, 2010, and around the same time served document subpoenas on Christopher Morales in Falls Church, Va., where he maintains his office. We believe that E'Lyn Bryan, also of Boca Raton, was served with document subpoenas around that time.

On August 14, ARA filed an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors, which is a filing in Florida courts similar to a Chapter 7 filing in Federal Bankruptcy Court. In a related deposition on Sept. 7, ARA executive Agnes Palmer reportedly testified that a result of the FBI's subpoena, approximately 90-percent of ARA's autograph inventory was either seized by the FBI, ordered held under subpoena and stored at their headquarters, or determined by ARA to be unsalable.

According to Gladstone over several phone conversations with me—one with historical autograph dealer John Reznikoff serving as "referee"—ARA purchased most of their rock autographs from Heroes and Legends in Calif., owned by Myron Ross; Forever Legends in Calif., owned by Maria Brockway; Autograph Central in Ill., owned by Bryan Slaven; and Gallery of Dreams in Calif., owned by Bruce Hall. Until late 2009, Christopher Morales was listed on Gallery of Dreams' Executive Profiles Web page as their authenticator.

Brockway and Slaven are convicted felons.

We have also found evidence linking Rock Star Gallery in Phoenix, Ariz., as a source of ARA's autographed items.

According to Gladstone, Gallery of Dreams was the source of the forged autographed guitars, and altered rock artist signing photos that ARA used to sell them that were the subject of ABC News 20/20 and Inside Edition television reports in late 2009.

I received a surprise phone call from Gladstone last May, in which he thanked me for discovering the photoshopped signing photos and said that he had discovered he was a victim of fraud by his suppliers, claiming they sold him forgeries without his knowledge.

Common sense and Gladstone's aggressive actions over the years against Frank Caiazzo, Autograph, me, personally, and others make his lack of knowledge of the fraud hard for me to believe. But if the FBI's investigations result in indictments, that will be for a court to decide.

A number of respected members of the autograph hobby have been involved in the FBI investigation. Most important of all, the dealer who brought ARA and Morales to the FBI's attention. A member of Autograph Magazine Live!, I won't mention his name without his permission, or name most of the others involved at this time.

I became aware of the investigation several months in, when I got a call from FBI Special Agent Jim Wynne. One of Jim's specialties is art and collectables crime, and I couldn't be more impressed with his skill, intelligence and dedication. I've had the privilege of helping by finding victims, connections and evidence since then. It's something I'll never forget. I've chosen to keep the story under wraps until recently, so not deter the FBI's investigation. That's not typically what a journalist does; our job is to report the news as quickly and fully as possible. I hope you'll understand and forgive my delay. Even now, I'm limited in what I can share with you.

I'll tell you more about it soon, but it's 4 a.m. and want to get a little shuteye. But before I sign-off, I want to thank someone who has not only been my right hand through much of my efforts; he has selflessly paid the price of his incredibly generous cooperation. I didn't ask his permission to mention his name, but hopefully he won't mind:

Roger Epperson
Not only has Roger been there whenever I needed him to give me his opinion on autographs and provide leads, he has helped many victims of unscrupulous dealers recover hundreds of thousands of dollars in refunds on forgeries.

Roger's efforts and willingness to speak his mind have made him the music forgery industry's Public Enemy No. 1. Roger has been the subject of fraudulent so-called "stings," and defamed on fraud industry propaganda sites Autograph Alert and IADA by Gladstone associates Stephen Koschal and Michael Frost; as well as one that Gladstone admitted that he controls, Behind the Gavel.

They tried to ruin him...but they couldn't.

Roger, I can't thank you enough for all your help, and all you've done to help collectors.

Comment by DB on October 5, 2010 at 4:36am: although in typical fashion we stray from the original here is the http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/autographs.html for their polices. I have always loved the "reputable 3rd parties" thar never seem to be listed.

I have heard of the COA Banned list but never seem to locate the list (just by using simple search windows). is yet another closely held EBAY secret unless things have changed recently. Unfortunately, the people who seem to get snagged in this are not the original perpertrators but many who resell them only to find an Email from the Mgmt!

Like I said, the "stan's COA" for the same article turned up a few weeks later with a completely different coa. The item could have been authentic but all merchandise from Stan's had been tainted.

and Chris as you well know, when you contact a buyer it can and has been deemed interference with a seller and thus one can loose their account. One of the reasons why they started masking the buyer names until the end. We won't even go down the road of schill bidding....

no wonder I have become a lunatic!

So as long as they take these precautions and provide authentication services then they are in the clear. And don't you think that others haven't learned from this?

Comment by Bill Panagopulos on October 5, 2010 at 1:23pm: A superlative post, Chris - well thought-out and well-stated.

One avenue I've always considered is legal action against the largest sellers of fakes. The grounds? I make my living from the sale (by auction) of historic autographs. When a large, crooked competitor floods the market with bad material sold at cheap prices, he drags down the prices for similar authentic material, and hence reduces my profits. Additionally, when me and my colleagues have this fake material consigned to us and ultimately reject it, the industry loses another potential collector (and another potential customer).

If dealers, auctioneers, and serious collectors who may have hundredes of thousands or millions of dollars in holdings and potential profits at stake see that the value of those holdings are being severely eroded by the wholesale destruction of the industry by the sellers of fakes, they would set aside their egos and commence a massive class-action lawsuit against the parties responsible.

Your thoughts?

Comment by CJCollector on October 5, 2010 at 1:41pm: Thank you, Bill, but my thoughts are never "thought-out," I write on impulse. I've always wondered why, after all these years, the reason why no one has ever gone after Coach's Corner. Every month they have 10-12 Babe Ruth signed baseballs, bats or uniform items; Between 4-8 Lou Gehrig signed items. Cut autographs of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, etc., every single month. Where do those masses of autographs come from? Let's open up those consignment records, Lee and Scott. I wanted to be long-winded on this comment, too, but I won't.

Comment by DB on October 5, 2010 at 1:55pm: Because it's all about "profits" as some say and dragging down the outrageous prices that some of these pieces have ascended too making their availability to the rank and file near impossible. Prohibition ought to have taught us a lesson then again learning lessons is not part of history.

I've always thought that those who hold their value of their holdings as the primary reason for getting involved have missed the point entirely. IMHO that is.

Comment by CJCollector on October 5, 2010 at 2:07pm: I'm not a seller of huge numbers of authentic autograph items. My small collection is for me. I collect. I don't own a web store and I don't own a hobby store. So why have I been involved in fighting this battle for such a long time against thousands of sellers of forgeries? Because it is WRONG! It simply isn't right that those people are allowed to continue without consequences and heavy penalties. On Ebay it happens thousands of times a day and those sellers can run amok with no fear of harsh consequences like jail or monetary fines for committing fraud. It's blatant and Ebay is well aware of what is going on. I have no real vested interest in this battle but I fight it any way no matter the personal attacks because it's the right thing to do. Aside from the question to form a legal alliance against these people, it's important that those people know that they are being watched and that they can no longer remain anonymous or hidden behind Ebay's "Private Listings, "Private Feedback" and protected by the "borders" of Ebay. We cannot and will not be intimidated by those same people. Awhile back I received a threat serious enough that it warranted me documenting it with my local police department. All that threat made me do was to attack and expose more people. The bottom line, is that what those people do isn't right. It is wrong. It cannot be allowed to continue without consequences.

Comment by CJCollector on October 5, 2010 at 2:14pm: Just one more point. I feel bad for collectors who are unable to sell their memorabilia for fair market value because the market is flooded with garbage, which in turn devalues everything. It's a sad state of affairs.

Comment by Bill Panagopulos on October 5, 2010 at 2:14pm: DB - This business feeds me and my family, and does the same for Reznikoff, Cyrkin, Eaton, Badwey, etc. etc. etc. And if you think any one dealer, or combination can in any way "control" or "fix" prices, you're way off base. It would be easier to fix the price of pork bellies. Lincoln must have signed 20,000 military commissions alone, and they still sell for $5000++ each, no matter how many appear, even in a single sale.

And honestly, I devote a LOT of my time to autograph pursuits that don't earn me a penny, but save consumers like you a lot by keeping you from being ripped-off. But I'm no hypocrite - if I wanted to devote my life to saving humanity, I would have joined the Peace Corps

Comment by DB on October 5, 2010 at 2:23pm: Bill, I can provide you with the peace corp information if you have a desire to serve.

I don't have an issue with what your desire to feed your family or whatever else it feeds but I do have an issue pork belly analogies as I was recently with a member of congress within the House Ways and Means and perhaps apparent chairman. But, lets not quibble....

and I am estatic you are saving me from being ripped off. However, the best was to save this business is to have full disclosure of where things come from especially when they are proven to be fake. If they are from a "dumbchit" consignor who was duped then they in turn need to provide the information on where it was obtained ..... or as perhaps some in Law Enforcement learned long ago - the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree and thus we can eventually rid ourselves of these snakes, hopefully.

Comment by DB on October 5, 2010 at 2:39pm: Travis it was instituted as part of Ebay's wayward philosophy that people on ebay are basically good. It was also put in place that people are so "good" that they wanted to prevent anyone from contacting the bidder regardless of reason. I's a 2 edge sword as some would contact bidders to upend their bids right or wrong and ebay found that sellers were being interfered with.

Comment by DB on October 5, 2010 at 2:46pm: Artificially or what the market is willing to pay. Price Fixing? Naw, why would anyone research or set prices that are similar +/- to what others are offering. Is price fixing direct or indirect - well that is a discussion for intellectual property attornies but to think that prices don't get fixed is naive.

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