- #1
tribdog
- 769
- 17
I've been collecting sports cards for about 15 or 20 years. I was at a garage sale 3 or 4 years ago and bought a big box full of cards. I think I paid around twenty dollars for the box full. Most of the cards weren’t worth anything, but there were a bunch of ’86-’87 Fleer Basketball cards. One of them was Michael Jordan’s rookie card, worth between $400-800. Every card in this series is worth at least a dollar and most are quite a bit more because nobody made basketball cards for several years and this was the first set so there were a lot of rookie cards. I framed the Jordan rookie and put the rest into a nice folder with individual sleeves for each card.
Jon Moreno was a man who had grown up and gone to school with my girlfriend at the time. I didn’t know him that well, but I had met him quite a few times and my girlfriend had brought him inside our apartment. One day he saw the Jordan card and I took it down and showed it to him. He said he had a brother who collected sports cards too. He said his brother even had his own card. His brother had been a star on the ASU baseball team but hadn’t gone pro and now he was a college coach and professor.
I offered to give Jon a good deal if he wanted to buy the card for his brother, but he didn’t have any money so I kept the cards.
I didn’t see Jon much after that, that I can remember, and my girlfriend and I split up and moved out of the apartment. I moved into the apartment next door and lived there for about a month or so.
One day I just happened to be outside and Jon drove up to my old apartment. He saw me and asked if I was still with my ex, he was looking for her. I said no and he started to leave then he turned around and asked me if I still had the Jordan card and how much I’d sell it for if I did. I told him $300 and I’d give him an even better deal on the rest of the series and a bunch of duplicates. I can’t remember if I said $300 or $400 for the others. He said he’d try to sell them to his brother and either call or come back later. I told him my phone number and he left.
Later that same day he called and said his brother wanted the Jordan rookie. He wanted to come and get the card and take it to his brother, but I said I needed the money first. He said his brother wouldn’t give him the cash without seeing the card. I offered to bring the card to his brother, but Jon said no. (I assumed he didn’t want me to meet his brother because he was trying to make a profit by telling his brother a higher price)
We hung up and he called back a few minutes later and asked if I would take a check. I said I would have to cash it first before I’d give him the card. We agreed to meet at the place where I had cashed my paychecks in the past. He was already there when I got there. He gave me a check and said that everything over $300 was his. I took the check and glanced at it as I went inside. I saw that it was made out to me for four hundred and something dollars and I noticed the name of the college in the corner. I thought it was his brother’s credit union at the school. I only had the check in my hand for the 10 seconds it takes to walk up to the teller and I had to look where I was going as I walked so I really didn’t look at the check for more than 1 or 2 seconds. I handed the teller the check and my ID. I signed my name on the back and put my fingerprint on it. The teller took the check into the back and I don’t know what she did back there. Normally I think they call whoever wrote the check, but I had a history with cashing my checks there so they knew I was honest. A little while later she came out from the back and handed me the money. I put $300 in my pocket and gave the Jordan card and the rest of the money to Jon. Then we both got into our separate vehicles and left.
One or two days later Jon called me again and said his brother wanted the rest of the set. I said okay and we went through the same thing as before. We met at the check cashing place, everything went fine. Jon got more money this time, but I had already committed to the original price, (300-400) so he got the rest.
After he got the cards I never saw or heard from him again. For the next year or so I only thought about the cards when I saw Michael Jordan on TV. I wished I still had the cards, but I never thought twice about there being a problem with the checks.
I never heard a thing until one day I was arrested and told that there was a felony warrant for my arrest. I couldn’t believe it, and even the officer who arrested me told me that he hears a lot of stories from the people he arrests, and can tell when someone is lying to him. He said that it was obvious that I didn’t have any idea why I was being arrested and he hoped I could get everything straightened up when I saw the judge. Everything didn’t get straightened out though and I spent the next two weeks in jail. I lost my job and only got out a few days before I had to go to my daughter’s custody trial. I would have gotten custody of my daughter because I had had a job and an apartment and wasn’t in any trouble with the law, but because of this case I went to court without a job and with a felony case in progress.
When I got out after those two weeks I started trying to track down Jon Moreno. I asked a few people who knew him, but they didn’t know where he was. I also got online and did a Google search and came up with a newspaper article about him. I also searched the court records and found out that Jon has several felony cases, including the following: CR2002-099444(Forgery), CR2002-095026 (Forgery), CR2002-095017 (Forgery), CR2002-099761 (Identity Theft), CR2001-095011 (Forgery). Jon had been in custody, but was released to attend his son’s funeral. He was only supposed to be out of jail for 1 or 2 days then turn himself back in. He never went back to the jail and nobody knows where he was for quite a while. He and his wife went on the run and eventually went all the way to Maine. According to the newspaper article I found Jon got a job with a cleaning company in mid-October and worked there for two-weeks. Sometime in mid November forged checks started to pile up in the banks and in mid December Jon and his wife were caught.
I know Jon was in Mesa during the first week of October, because that’s when he bought the cards from me. Further proof is that one of the accounts he was caught forging in Maine was Arizona’s Unemployment Offices and that a check from them had been stolen out of a mailbox here in Arizona around the beginning of October. The article also talks about how Jon was printing up checks on his computer and going out and buying things with them. This is exactly what he did to me. It was just a coincidence that he ran into me that day, but took advantage of it and got some very valuable sports cards and enough money to allow him to move to Maine.
I told all this to my first public defender and he said I have a good case and he would put me on the stand to testify. Then on the day of the trial the judge discovered a problem with the paperwork. The case was dismissed and I was told that if charges were refilled I would be getting a notice in the mail.
A year went by without my hearing anything further. I was able to get a very good job as a Surveyor for Azca Engineering. I quickly became a crew chief, got a company truck, a company phone and several raises nearly doubling my starting salary. Then one day I got pulled over and arrested on these same charges. Nobody ever sent me a letter or anything. I had to sit in jail again for over a week before I saw the judge and he let me out. Luckily my boss likes me and he didn’t fire me. I wasn’t trying to do anything illegal, and I thought I was protecting myself by demanding that I get the checks cashed before I handed over any cards. I was only worried about there not being enough money in the account, I never considered that the checks might be bad.
I was assigned a new public defender this time around and she doesn’t even want to hear my story. She says I should have taken the plea for 1 ½ years in prison instead of taking it to trial, but I just can’t fathom going to jail because of all this. I was fooled just like hundreds of other people Jon has done this to.
Today I went to court and was offered 6 months or take it to trial and risk getting 4.5 years. I am in shock. The thing that bothers me the most is that nobody has ever asked me what my story is. All anyone knows is bad check-my signature. I even offered to pay back the money, then try to get it back in a civil court. My lawyer said no because that looks like an admission of guilt. My boss offered to pay the money back if it meant I could keep working.
Public Defenders suck, and I just don’t have a retainer of $7500-15000 for a real lawyer. I know I’m supposed to be funny, but this sucks. I’m not going to go to jail.
Jon Moreno was a man who had grown up and gone to school with my girlfriend at the time. I didn’t know him that well, but I had met him quite a few times and my girlfriend had brought him inside our apartment. One day he saw the Jordan card and I took it down and showed it to him. He said he had a brother who collected sports cards too. He said his brother even had his own card. His brother had been a star on the ASU baseball team but hadn’t gone pro and now he was a college coach and professor.
I offered to give Jon a good deal if he wanted to buy the card for his brother, but he didn’t have any money so I kept the cards.
I didn’t see Jon much after that, that I can remember, and my girlfriend and I split up and moved out of the apartment. I moved into the apartment next door and lived there for about a month or so.
One day I just happened to be outside and Jon drove up to my old apartment. He saw me and asked if I was still with my ex, he was looking for her. I said no and he started to leave then he turned around and asked me if I still had the Jordan card and how much I’d sell it for if I did. I told him $300 and I’d give him an even better deal on the rest of the series and a bunch of duplicates. I can’t remember if I said $300 or $400 for the others. He said he’d try to sell them to his brother and either call or come back later. I told him my phone number and he left.
Later that same day he called and said his brother wanted the Jordan rookie. He wanted to come and get the card and take it to his brother, but I said I needed the money first. He said his brother wouldn’t give him the cash without seeing the card. I offered to bring the card to his brother, but Jon said no. (I assumed he didn’t want me to meet his brother because he was trying to make a profit by telling his brother a higher price)
We hung up and he called back a few minutes later and asked if I would take a check. I said I would have to cash it first before I’d give him the card. We agreed to meet at the place where I had cashed my paychecks in the past. He was already there when I got there. He gave me a check and said that everything over $300 was his. I took the check and glanced at it as I went inside. I saw that it was made out to me for four hundred and something dollars and I noticed the name of the college in the corner. I thought it was his brother’s credit union at the school. I only had the check in my hand for the 10 seconds it takes to walk up to the teller and I had to look where I was going as I walked so I really didn’t look at the check for more than 1 or 2 seconds. I handed the teller the check and my ID. I signed my name on the back and put my fingerprint on it. The teller took the check into the back and I don’t know what she did back there. Normally I think they call whoever wrote the check, but I had a history with cashing my checks there so they knew I was honest. A little while later she came out from the back and handed me the money. I put $300 in my pocket and gave the Jordan card and the rest of the money to Jon. Then we both got into our separate vehicles and left.
One or two days later Jon called me again and said his brother wanted the rest of the set. I said okay and we went through the same thing as before. We met at the check cashing place, everything went fine. Jon got more money this time, but I had already committed to the original price, (300-400) so he got the rest.
After he got the cards I never saw or heard from him again. For the next year or so I only thought about the cards when I saw Michael Jordan on TV. I wished I still had the cards, but I never thought twice about there being a problem with the checks.
I never heard a thing until one day I was arrested and told that there was a felony warrant for my arrest. I couldn’t believe it, and even the officer who arrested me told me that he hears a lot of stories from the people he arrests, and can tell when someone is lying to him. He said that it was obvious that I didn’t have any idea why I was being arrested and he hoped I could get everything straightened up when I saw the judge. Everything didn’t get straightened out though and I spent the next two weeks in jail. I lost my job and only got out a few days before I had to go to my daughter’s custody trial. I would have gotten custody of my daughter because I had had a job and an apartment and wasn’t in any trouble with the law, but because of this case I went to court without a job and with a felony case in progress.
When I got out after those two weeks I started trying to track down Jon Moreno. I asked a few people who knew him, but they didn’t know where he was. I also got online and did a Google search and came up with a newspaper article about him. I also searched the court records and found out that Jon has several felony cases, including the following: CR2002-099444(Forgery), CR2002-095026 (Forgery), CR2002-095017 (Forgery), CR2002-099761 (Identity Theft), CR2001-095011 (Forgery). Jon had been in custody, but was released to attend his son’s funeral. He was only supposed to be out of jail for 1 or 2 days then turn himself back in. He never went back to the jail and nobody knows where he was for quite a while. He and his wife went on the run and eventually went all the way to Maine. According to the newspaper article I found Jon got a job with a cleaning company in mid-October and worked there for two-weeks. Sometime in mid November forged checks started to pile up in the banks and in mid December Jon and his wife were caught.
I know Jon was in Mesa during the first week of October, because that’s when he bought the cards from me. Further proof is that one of the accounts he was caught forging in Maine was Arizona’s Unemployment Offices and that a check from them had been stolen out of a mailbox here in Arizona around the beginning of October. The article also talks about how Jon was printing up checks on his computer and going out and buying things with them. This is exactly what he did to me. It was just a coincidence that he ran into me that day, but took advantage of it and got some very valuable sports cards and enough money to allow him to move to Maine.
I told all this to my first public defender and he said I have a good case and he would put me on the stand to testify. Then on the day of the trial the judge discovered a problem with the paperwork. The case was dismissed and I was told that if charges were refilled I would be getting a notice in the mail.
A year went by without my hearing anything further. I was able to get a very good job as a Surveyor for Azca Engineering. I quickly became a crew chief, got a company truck, a company phone and several raises nearly doubling my starting salary. Then one day I got pulled over and arrested on these same charges. Nobody ever sent me a letter or anything. I had to sit in jail again for over a week before I saw the judge and he let me out. Luckily my boss likes me and he didn’t fire me. I wasn’t trying to do anything illegal, and I thought I was protecting myself by demanding that I get the checks cashed before I handed over any cards. I was only worried about there not being enough money in the account, I never considered that the checks might be bad.
I was assigned a new public defender this time around and she doesn’t even want to hear my story. She says I should have taken the plea for 1 ½ years in prison instead of taking it to trial, but I just can’t fathom going to jail because of all this. I was fooled just like hundreds of other people Jon has done this to.
Today I went to court and was offered 6 months or take it to trial and risk getting 4.5 years. I am in shock. The thing that bothers me the most is that nobody has ever asked me what my story is. All anyone knows is bad check-my signature. I even offered to pay back the money, then try to get it back in a civil court. My lawyer said no because that looks like an admission of guilt. My boss offered to pay the money back if it meant I could keep working.
Public Defenders suck, and I just don’t have a retainer of $7500-15000 for a real lawyer. I know I’m supposed to be funny, but this sucks. I’m not going to go to jail.