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Busted!: Man gets probation for $25,000 eBay scam |
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By ALAN J. KEAYS
Herald Staff
A Rutland man who made more than $25,000 selling fake celebrity memorabilia over the Internet has avoided jail. In U.S. District Court in Burlington on Monday, Judge William Sessions sentenced John Landau, 42, to serve two years on probation. Landau had pleaded guilty earlier to mail and wire fraud.
Prosecutors had asked for Landau to serve a year in jail. His attorney had argued for probation, according to court records.
Prosecutors said Landau ran his fraudulent business on eBay, an Internet auction site, from his Burnham Avenue apartment for nine months, starting in late 2001.
He falsely advertised the items he posted on eBay as the former belongings of John Wayne, Lucille Ball, Joan Crawford and Ava Gardner, according to the indictment.
He was eventually shut down by eBay and fraud investigators.
“He assured buyers that they would receive with each item, a ‘certificate of authenticity,’” federal prosecutor William Darrow wrote in a sentencing memorandum. “The items that Landau offered and sold were paste jewelry and second-hand junk which he sometimes had engraved with celebrities’ name or initial.”
Darrow wrote that Landau made false claims on about 250 items, selling them to 165 people all over the U.S. for more than $25,000.
Landau claimed he inherited the items from his deceased lover, who had obtained them from the stars while working in Hollywood in the 1970s and 1980s, according to court records.
Darrow wrote that Landau tried to encourage bids for his bogus memorabilia by representing that one-third or more of the proceeds would go to charity.
According to court records, Landau told the engraver who put celebrity names on the items that he was having them made up as gag gifts for friends.
Defense attorney John Pacht of Burlington wrote in his sentencing memorandum that Landau had been using crack cocaine and suffering from depression.
Landau grew up in Brookline, Mass., and lived in Florida and then Denmark, where he worked for a newspaper, according to court records.
“Depression and drugs again caught up with him in Denmark, and he became increasingly addicted to crack cocaine,” Pacht wrote. “John returned to the States a broken man.”
He came back to the U.S. and in 2000 entered the drug treatment center at Spring Lake Ranch in Cuttingsville. He left the facility in 2001, got a job in Rutland and lost it six months later, and started using crack cocaine again, Pacht wrote.
“His life at the time was marked by isolation, sadness and loneliness,” the attorney wrote. “It was under these circumstances that John Landau initiated and committed his criminal-offense conduct in this case in September 2001.”
Landau has since received treatment again and continues to receive counseling, according to court records.
“John is, of course, scared to death of the possibility of going to jail,” Pacht wrote. “No doubt this has provided substantial motivation for his positive improvement.”
Contact Alan J. Keays at alan.keays @rutlandherald.com.
rutlandherald
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