A former Arkansas sports memorabilia dealer was taken into custody Monday after a federal court hearing in Chicago.
John Rogers’ bond was revoked after the five-hour hearing, said Joseph Fitzpatrick, assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. Fitzgerald said Rogers, who was in the courtroom, was immediately taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals Service.
Fitzpatrick said he doesn’t know where Rogers will be held until his Dec. 20 sentencing before U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin in Chicago.
Rogers pleaded guilty in March to one count of wire fraud. According to federal court filings, Rogers was free on $100,000 unsecured bond. On Oct. 13, after a pretrial services violation report, Durkin admonished Rogers for violations of his bond conditions. On Nov. 13, Monday’s bond- revocation hearing was scheduled.
According to a Nov. 7 sentencing memorandum from acting U.S. Attorney Joel Levin, Rogers continued his illegal activity after agreeing to cooperate with the FBI.
“Despite his agreement, he later sold fraudulent sports memorabilia, including phony Mickey Mantle baseball cards and the phony Scottie Pippen trophies,” wrote Levin.
In early October, a person who had been in a romantic relationship with Rogers reported to police that Rogers had committed assault, wrote Levin.
This person described continued fraudulent activities committed by Rogers before and after his guilty plea.
Levin recommended at least 141 months in prison for Rogers. He also wants the judge to order Rogers to pay restitution of $22,762,620 to his victims.
Rogers operated two companies, Sports Card Plus and Rogers Photo Archive LLC.
According to Levin’s Nov. 7 filing, Rogers admitted to “fraudulent” activity dating back to 2000, but he “was most heavily involved in the illegal conduct from 2005 to 2014.”
In 2008, Rogers, then 35 and living in Little Rock, bought one of the most sought-after baseball cards in the world, a T206 Honus Wagner card, for $1.62 million, wrote Levin. Nicknamed “The Flying Dutchman,” Wagner was a shortstop who played 21 seasons in Major League Baseball from 1897 to 1917.
The next year, Rogers began acquiring vintage photographs from newspapers, beginning with the pre-digital archives of the Detroit News.
“His goal was to take thousands and thousands of photo negatives — pieces of local, national, and international history — that were collecting dust in the warehouses and archives of major newspapers, and digitize them,” wrote Levin. “Some of these negatives were originally shot by newspaper photographers more than 70 to 80 years ago, and contained images that have not been published since.”
Rogers’ reputation rose with every deal he made to digitize newspaper archives.
But the cost to digitize the photo archives proved to be more expensive than anticipated, and estimated revenue on selling images from the negatives didn’t come to fruition, wrote Levin.
Also, some of his sports memorabilia customers were becoming aware of the bogus merchandise he sold them and wanted their money back.
Rogers began using fake documents to convince investors that he had a lucrative deal that would return a profit, according to the sentencing memorandum.
Rogers created a fake document indicating he was going to digitize the photo archive of The Daily Oklahoman newspaper, according to the sentencing memorandum. He used that fake document to defraud an investor, identified as WH, out of more than $3.5 million, wrote Levin.
Another investor, identified as JC, gave Rogers $1.8 million in 2013 after Rogers presented a phony contract to purchase another sports memorabilia collection and a bogus estimate of the value of Rogers Photo Archive, according to Levin.
Rogers famously created a fake 1978 Billy Sims Heisman Trophy, which he used as collateral. Rogers had purchased an honorary 1960 Heisman Trophy for $50,363 and had a trophy shop make a fake nameplate so it would appear to be Sims’ trophy.