A major sports memorabilia seller reportedly tossed a grenade into the industry through a lengthy Facebook post and then committed suicide.
A post in an autographs group attributed to 45-year-old Brett Lemieux dropped dizzying details about a decades-long scheme to counterfeit signatures on sports memorabilia in order to profit from the sales.
‘I wish I had the exact dollar number of money taken in from this and I’ll go to my grave never knowing. I kept this secret from everyone.’
The post was published on Wednesday, the same day that Westfield Police released a statement confirming that they had raided a property as part of an investigation into counterfeit memorabilia on Tuesday. Police then raided a second property Wednesday and found a man dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Sports Collectors Digest reported that property records connected a raid location to Lemieux.
The post said that Lemieux had sold $350 million worth of items through his company named Mister Mancave. It described the scam as an “addiction.”
How many items can I sell and give a front of a huge company. I did it for years. Purchased millions of dollars of legit items. Mixed it until [name withheld] found the hologram connect. Then I had the bank roll to buy even more. Do more signings. Every one item from a signing turned into 10,000. And it was certified. 95% of the [Patrick] Mahomes and Aaron [Judge] on the market are sold by me. Basically every autograph sold in the last 25 years you should have it looked at. It’s fake and someone sold it to you other than me. I wish I had the exact dollar number of money taken in from this and I’ll go to my grave never knowing. I kept this secret from everyone.
While some are skeptical about the claims made in the post regarding the scale of the counterfeit scam, others say even a fraction of the numbers would toss the industry into chaos.
“I was addicted. It was a rush. I wanted out. But the money was too good. I can make [$]100,000 in a week if I wanted to. The fact that not one dealer that knew what we were doing to the industry, or when I took their exclusive, no one ever picked up a phone to confront me. That baffled me,” the post read.
“I told multiple dealers I will ruin you and your exclusive. They knew better,” it continued.
On Thursday, Cllct said the person found dead in the police raid had been identified as Lemieux.
“If he made and sold that much, the autograph industry would have been crushed,” said one autograph dealer to Cllct.
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