Quote:
Originally Posted by ctownboy
Correct me if I am wrong but didn't Bill Mastro or Doug Allen come on this board (or the older board) and say that there was no shill bidding or fraud going on in their auctions when this was a hot topic a few years ago?
I might be, in the famous words of Andy Pettitte, misremembering but I thought this was the case.
I thought there were some board members asking questions about the legitimacy of bids on items in some of their auctions (some were flat out asserting there was shilling going on) and I thought one of the main characters at Mastro Auctions came on to assure people nothing fishy was happening.
If that is the case, then couldn't the prosecution use those responses from those threads as evidence that bidders absolutely shouldn't have had an idea that shilling was going on and that the people involves SHOULD get a harsher penalty for their actions?
I might be totally off base here but I thought I remembered somebody from Mastro answering questions...
David
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David, you're 100% right. Yes, the prosecutors should be using this exact argument to refute Mastro's claim that bidders should have known there was fraud going on in his auction. Doug Allen conducted a massive campaign to convince us all that their auctions were clean. And this was during the period Bill Mastro was engaging in fraud with Allen in their auctions.
But keep in mind that making such an argument against Mastro would require a prosecutor to be more concerned with cleaning up fraud and punishing criminals than simply cleaning up her desk by getting rid of a pesky case that taxpayers paid millions of dollars to have investigated. The issue you raised should be included in letters to the judge about the true character of Mastro. Not only did they steal from their friends but when confronted they assured us all that no such fraud was transpiring. All of this helped Mastro and Allen steal more from their 'friends.'