How a conman exploited America’s obsession with its sports stars

Brett Lemieux ran the successful sports memorabilia website Mister Man Cave

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The business of sports memorabilia is worth an estimated $30 billion year in the United States. (Richard Perry/The New York Times)
The business of sports memorabilia is worth an estimated $30 billion year in the United States. (Richard Perry/The New York Times)

Sports memorabilia is big business in the United States.

Exceptional athletes can attain God-like status very quickly there, and everybody wants a piece.

The baseball that Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers hit for his 50th home run last season recently sold for $4.3 million (€3.7 million).

And if you are into buying sports memorabilia, chances are at some point you logged on to a website called Mister Man Cave, which boasts one of the largest football, baseball and basketball autograph inventories on the web.

That’s what it looked like, but all wasn’t as it seemed.

During an investigation into fraud and counterfeiting at Mister Man Cave, its owner 45-year-old Brett Lemieux took his own life.

The owner of Mister Mancave admitted most of the $350m in merchandise he sold to collectors was not authenticOpens in new window ]

Host Bernice Harrison is joined by Irish Times contributor and America-at-Large columnist Dave Hannigan, who explains that before his death, in a Facebook post, Lemieux spelled out for investigators and sports fans how he had flooded the market with hundreds of thousands of fraudulent sports-related items over two decades, generating hundreds of millions of dollars for his company.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by John Casey.

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