An 84-year-old Denver man pleaded guilty to two charges involving the selling of fraudulent cards, falsely represented as being graded and authenticated by PSA, in a long-running scheme that allegedly earned him more than $800,000 over the course of four years.
The scheme involved a fake Michael Jordan rookie card, which was represented and sold as a PSA 10, and two other faked Jordan rookies that were traded for authentic Tom Brady cards.
Mayo Gilbert McNeil was arrested in Denver in 2023 and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The Eastern District of New York accused McNeil of falsely representing sports cards he was selling and trading as authentic and graded by PSA by obtaining the company’s cases, logos and grading labels and repurposing them to pass off the counterfeit cards.
The alleged operation occurred from around April 2015 to July 2019.
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According to the 2023 complaint, McNeil had co-conspirators and communicated with them extensively. The complaint includes an excerpt from an email in which McNeil wrote, “How’s that new holder project going, anyway?”
Later, McNeil emailed the same person “send me that money or a card that I can sell,” and “I’m sure you are still doing deals but am [sic] not using me because you are afraid I’m being investigated.”
McNeil is accused of selling cards, which PSA determined to be counterfeit, to a store in Las Vegas in January 2017.
Among the multiple transactions named in the complaint, McNeil is accused of selling a fake Jordan rookie card, represented as a PSA 10, to a victim, who paid $4,500 for the card. At the time, the market value for a PSA 10 Jordan rookie was around $30,000. PSA determined the Jordan rookie to be fake.
The investigation eventually found McNeil and his co-conspirators had netted around $808,500 during the scheme.
McNeil is set to be sentenced in July.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.