Following my original thread (link below) on the forgeries sold by the Bergen County Prosecutor (and Caspert Auctioneers & Appraisers), Howard Thompson (Help Me Howard) of Pix11 Channel 11 here in New York produced a two-part follow-up on the forgeries and how they were made available to the public.

First, the link to my original thread:

http://live.autographmagazine.com/profiles/blogs/forged-autographs-...

Two, links to Parts 1 & 2 of the Investigative Report produced by Howard Thompson of Pix11:

http://pix11.com/2014/11/19/prosecutor-auctions-off-bogus-sports-me...

http://pix11.com/2014/11/20/nj-prosecutor-used-false-document-to-se...

The forgeries sold by the Bergen County Prosecutor and Caspert Auctioneers & Appraisers were authenticated by Authentic Autographs Unlimited (Drew Max).

The Bergen County Prosecutor paid Drew Max and Marc Goldman (Authentic Autographs Unlimited) $10,000 to examine the confiscated memorabilia.

Unfortunately, the Bergen County Prosecutor did not reveal that the majority of the autographs were "deemed not authentic" years before.

Mr. Howard Thompson does a great job revealing the true story behind the autographs being "deemed not authentic" with true documentation.

The  majority of the autographs that were sold at the auction obvious are forgeries.

These are forgeries that we see on Ebay being sold (and exposed by the autograph collectors here on AML) every day.

One of the winners of some of the forgeries were Mary Byrne and John Slokovitz.  When you watch Parts 1 & 2 you will see the ugly and poorly-executed Mickey Mantle forgery they purchased.

Below is a photo of the Advertising Poster for the Bergen County Auction.  It is a typical Joe DiMaggio "Operation Bullpen" era forgery.  An obvious forgery.

http://www.bidspotter.com/en-us/auction-catalogues/bsccasp/catalogu...

Part 2 of the Investigative Report done by Howard Thompson is very revealing.

The people who purchased that garbage are people who have no knowledge of autographs.  They based their purchases on the confidence that the Bergen County Prosecutor was selling authentic autographs.

http://pix11.com/2014/11/20/nj-prosecutor-used-false-document-to-se...

The sad and disappointing aspect of all of this is that we have a difficult time enough fighting the sellers of forgeries and phoney authenticators and now this.

It is also interesting to note that according to the Investigative Report by Howard Thompson, PSA would have examined the autographs for half the amount ($5,000) that the Bergen County Prosecutor paid Drew Max ($10,000) and those forgeries would have never made it to auction.

I have yet to see a Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio autograph authenticated by Drew Max that is authentic.  Not one.

Think about that.