Forgery Of Signatures Of Celebrities
Everyone knows someone who likes to exaggerate their connections with celebrities. Perhaps your coworker is from Upper Darby, and he tells everyone that he is BFFs with Tina Fey, but what he actually means is that he once saw someone who looked a lot like her in a supermarket. Maybe your math teacher is a huge fan of the Alan Parsons Project and has a concert poster of theirs hanging on the wall of the classroom; if anyone asks, he tells them that he went backstage and ate potato chips with Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson, when in fact he sat in the nosebleed section and ate potato chips with his own siblings. Padding your celebrity stories with fluff is generally harmless unless you are doing it for financial gain. If you are a professional standup comedian, you should follow your colleagues’ example about what to say and what not to say about famous people you know only in passing. Otherwise, you should keep the names of celebrities out of your income-generating activities. If you are facing criminal charges for falsely claiming that you or your products have a close connection to a celebrity, contact a Pittsburgh white collar crime lawyer.
Selling Memorabilia With Forged Signatures of Celebrities Is Fraud
The crime of forgery occurs when you make false claims about the origins of a document or of a signature that it bears, and you benefit financially from this falsehood or attempt to benefit financially from this falsehood. In other words, forgery is the disconnect between your knowledge of the document’s origins and the recipient’s knowledge of them. Therefore, one possible defense is that you reasonably believed that the documents were genuine, meaning that the party that presented the documents to you misled you. Another possible defense is that you thought that the recipient knew that the documents were not what they claimed to be. You can use this defense if you can argue that you reasonably believed that the recipient knew that the document was a joke or a work of fiction.
In the News
On June 10, 2024, Jason Kelce, formerly of the Philadelphia Eagles made an appearance at the Valley Forge Casino Resort in King of Prussia to autograph memorabilia. Shortly thereafter, Robert Capone began advertising memorabilia that Kelce allegedly signed at the same venue on June 11, and he sold more than 1,000 items that he claimed bore Kelce’s signature. Police later arrested him after buyers figured out that the signatures on the memorabilia could not truly belong to Kelce. In August 2025, Capone pleaded guilty to theft by deception, deceptive business practices, and conspiracy to commit forgery. Similar charges against his alleged co-conspirator Freddy Sicoli. Two other defendants were also charged, but the state dropped the evidence against them because the evidence pointed to them not knowing that the signatures were fake.
Contact Gary E. Gerson About Criminal Defense Cases
A criminal defense lawyer can help you if you are facing criminal charges for forgery of celebrity signatures on memorabilia. Contact the law offices of Gary E. Gerson in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania about your case.
Source:
sportscollectorsdaily.com/pennsylvania-man-pleads-guilty-to-selling-bogus-jason-kelce-signed-memorabilia/
