Attorneys for a Colorado man accused of being involved in a scam to sell phony high-grade sports cards that netted him more than $800,000 — including bogus rookie cards of Michael Jordan — have filed a motion in federal court to suppress evidence.
According to the motion, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on Sept. 12, attorneys for Mayo Gilbert McNeil, 83, argued that the “fruits of a single search warrant” the government used to seize six different Google accounts in August 2019 was a violation of the Denver resident’s Fourth Amendment rights.
McNeil’s attorneys argued that while prosecutors established “probable cause” to search certain accounts for email communications, “the scope of search and seizure far exceeded the government’s limited probable cause.” They also characterized the search warrant as “unconstitutionally overbroad.”
According to court documents from the original complaint, filed in a federal court in Brooklyn New York, the case involved counterfeit cards and fake holders. The FBI alleged that between April 2015 and July 2019, McNeil conspired with others to sell and trade cards, including the 1986 Fleer Jordan rookie, to victims he found via the internet and through online selling platforms.
In building their case, prosecutors said that McNeil used six different Google email accounts to communicate with his alleged victims. The defendant admitted discovery from five of the email addresses, but his attorneys allege that any other searches were overly broad.
An affidavit cited two of what investigators alleged were multiple cases of fraud involving McNeill and other persons. Prosecutors said a man who they believe was McNeil taunted a victim in an email exchange about stealing their money. In what was called the “Supercards account,” prosecutors presented an affidavit that stated that a man identified as “Aldo Rendon” sent cards to the victim in a trade in June 2017 that were later determined to be fake.
When the victim telephoned Rendon to complain, the man said that he had already sold the victim’s cards for $35,000 and that he “had made millions” through this scheme, prosecutors said.
Five months later, “Rendon” did another deal after communicating with the victim through eBay, court documents show. Using the name “Copperfield,” the scammer told the victim that he had made $2 million over two years by trading cards.
In another taunt, the man told the victim that another victim “had tried to get the Secret Service after me and couldn’t do anything about it because I am untraceable,” court documents show.
“Rendon” added in a WhatsApp chat that, “Stupid people like you need to be informed of how stupid you are.”
Proseuctors determined that “Rendon” was Wesley McNeil Zuck, McNeil’s son, who at the time lived in Tucson, Arizona.
The FBI said that in 2015, McNeil and another person exchanged emails discussing their alleged scheme, noting that they would be making $5,000 on every deal.
In January 2017, McNeil allegedly sold two baseball cards to a sports card shop in Las Vegas that were later determined to be counterfeit. Later that year, McNeil agreed to a deal in which he allegedly sent two fake Jordan rookie cards to a collector as part of a deal.
According to court documents, during the summer of 2019 McNeil met another person through an online auction site. The victim asked about a pair of PSA 10 Jordan rookies; the original complaint stated that McNeil asked to communicate with the interested buyers outside the parameters of the auction site. Prosecutors claimed that the victim wired $4,500 to McNeil, who in turn mailed the phony cards to his home in Manhasset, New York.
The search warrant — despite advancing independent facts to establish probable cause to examine each of the Google accounts — did not impose “distinct temporal limitations” on the information sought for each account, the motion states.
In seeking suppression of the evidence, McNeil’s attorneys said that the warrant authorized the search of each email account, “generally.”
Defense attorneys said that the Fourth Amendment protects McNeil’s property interest and “reasonable expectation of privacy in the papers and effects” stored in the email accounts from “unreasonable searches and seizures.”
The motion claims that the warrant and seizure of “large volumes” of Google data represent the very “general, exploratory rummaging” that the framers of the Constitution sought to prevent.
“All fruits of the unconstitutional search of the Google accounts must be suppressed,” the motion states.
Prosecutors are expected to file a response sometime over the next few weeks.
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