Beanie Baby Scam Gets A Man 15-Years In Prison and Another man deported.
Steven Cross received 15 years in prison this week for promising huge shipments which were never delivered of Beanie Babies and Pokemon cards at incredible discounts. His victims, owners of collector shops looking to get around the normal avenues of obtaining the very popular product by buying from a guy that claimed he could get his hands on the product through at the very least, suspect circumstances from an inside contact he claimed to have had at the company.
Overall, Cross delivered only a few dozen, but he walked off into
the sunset with over $275,000 in the 18 months that he ran the scam.
Police aren't sure where all the money went, but $10,000 worth of
losing lottery tickets were found in his apartment when Cross was
eventually arrested. Which shows even a professional scammer is vulnerable
to a scam.
After the judge heard all of the evidence at the trial, the judge
concluded that Cross could not be rehabilitated and sentenced him
to nearly double what was normal under federal sentencing guidelines.
He said that "Cross, could spin a lie as quickly as he could
pick up a telephone." He also said although federal guidelines
say that Cross should only have 8 years, he argued that those guidelines
don't adequately address a person of Cross's criminal history, and
the likelihood that he would return to a life of crime as soon as
he was released.
Cross has been a regular in and out of prison since 1987 for various
charges including, theft, forgery, and bank fraud. In the fraud case
he took the identity of doctors and made some $85,000 in purchases
with credit cards obtained in their names.
In this particular episode of Cross life of crime he used these people's
greed against them, Cross told people that he had an "inside"
connection at Beanie Babies and get his hands on huge amounts of the
product. He worked out deals with dealers where they would mail him
tens of thousands of dollars with promises of large shipments.
In addition to being "connected" with Beanie he claimed he was also associated with Wizards of the Coast the makers of the Pokemon cards, and claimed he could do the same shit.
Jerry Pannette of DuBois, Pa., testified in court that the stress
from losing $27,000 to Cross and never getting a single Beanie Baby
from him drove him have a fucking heart attack.
" He was so credible." Pannette said "He (Cross) had
an answer for every question that we asked him."
Ali Saleem, a native of Pakistan who was a wholesale and retail seller
of Beanie Babies in Dallas, got it the worst. He testified that neighbors
and friends were so angered over his failure to get the deliveries
of Beanie Babies from Cross that they turned him in to immigration
authorities and had his ass deported.
Steven Cross received 15 years in prison this week for promising huge shipments which were never delivered of Beanie Babies and Pokemon cards at incredible discounts. His victims, owners of collector shops looking to get around the normal avenues of obtaining the very popular product by buying from a guy that claimed he could get his hands on the product through at the very least, suspect circumstances from an inside contact he claimed to have had at the company. 
