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JOE McDONALD,Pocono Record Writer January 6, 2011
STROUDSBURG — The National Basketball Association has slam dunked a Stroud Township man with a $398,500 judgment for allegedly selling counterfeit trading cards.
The judgment against Jack DeAngelis and his company, Gotta Have It Collectibles, grew out of a pending lawsuit in the federal Southern District of Florida in Miami.
NBA attorneys obtained the judgment and had it transferred from Florida to the Monroe County Courthouse after DeAngelis allegedly failed to respond to the allegations in the suit or produce any of the documents that the NBA had requested him to produce, according to court records. The NBA lawsuit was filed after U.S. marshals raided the office of Robert Levin, the president of Star International Inc. in Boca Raton, Fla., and printer Color Systems Ltd. of Pompano Beach, Fla., on July 9, 1997. U.S. marshals seized more than 125,000 newly printed Star basketball cards, including uncut sheets with dates indicating they were several years old.
The NBA said Star International held an NBA license to produce trading cards for brief periods in the mid-1980s and early 1990s. DeAngelis was named as a defendant in the NBA’s second amended complaint and was served a copy last April 29 at his father’s residence on Sandee Lane in the Twin Hills development, according to court records. Also named in the suit along with Star, Levin, Color Sysems and DeAngelis is Shop at Home of Tennessee. Shop at Home has sold out three of the alleged counterfeit sets with prices ranging from $299 to $699, according to The Miami Herald.
U.S. District Judge Donald Graham, in entering the judgment against DeAngelis, said DeAngelis had falsely represented to the public that his unlicensed trading cards were valuable licensed cards that were produced many years ago when in reality they are “worthless counterfeit items” that had been recently manufactured.
Asked if DeAngelis was selling bogus trading cards, DeAngelis’ lawyer, Joe Hollywood in Easton, said, “I’m not completely familiar with his inventory.” Hollywood called the nearly $400,000 figure “ridiculous.”
“Jack’s not a big operator,” Hollywood said. “He doesn’t make $400,000 a year in sales in a year. I can tell you this — there is no way that number is correct. He wishes he was making that kind of money.” DeAngelis, a former New York City broker, was charged with mail fraud in the 1980s in connection with a $340,000 commodity fraud and placed on probation. Jack DeAngelis was not charged in connection with the national, multi-million dollar gold coin fraud that sent his brothers, Timothy and James DeAngelis, to federal prison.
About 400 people were defrauded of $5.5 million in the scam. Timothy was sentenced to more than seven years in jail and James received 6? years but in 1995 a federal judge shaved 30 percent off their sentences for the cooperation they gave that led to charges against former nationally syndicated financial talk radio host “Sonny” Bloch. Bloch died of cancer after pleading guilty to nine felonies in September 1996.
The Star basketball trading cards alleged to be counterfeit include the following sets: 1985 Miller All-Star Set, 1985 Chicago Bulls Arena Set, 1986 Chicago Bulls Arena Set, 1986 Crunch ‘n’ Munch Set and 1991 Michael Jordan Promotional Sets.
Reference Link: http://www.poconorecord.com/article/19990219/News/302199996
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