Pete Pihos Update
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Here is an update on the Pete Pihos memorabilia situation:
From Rick Reilly's column next weeks Sports Illustrated
Two weeks ago, you read here about a Hall of Famer named Pete Pihos, a great receiver who helped the Philadelphia Eagles win two NFL titles. Pete has Alzheimer's, and his poor ex-wife, Donna, who took him back so she could tend to him, was facing a $6,000 dental bill and many times that much for adult day care for him. Hurting for cash, Donna decided to part with some valuable gifts Pete had given her years before: two Pro Bowl jerseys, Pete's old leather pads, and a football signed by Night Train Lane and 24 other Hall of Famers. A man who said he was from upstate New York came to Donna's house in Winston-Salem, N.C., to buy the stuff. He looked only about 25 but called himself Dr. James Hart. He took Donna's memorabilia and left her with $30,000 in rubber checks and a phone number to nowhere.
Turns out this "Dr. Hart" hairball got around. Not long after meeting with Donna, he wrote another bad check, this one for $5,000, and made off with signed photos of 77-year-old Hall of Fame lineman Lou Creekmur, who helped the Detroit Lions to three NFL titles and suffers from the early stages of dementia. "I'd love to beat the crap out of the guy," says Creekmur. "Thank God, I didn't let him near my memorabilia."
"Dr. Hart" also set up meetings with the Pittsburgh Steelers' great defensive lineman Ernie Stautner, who has Alzheimer's, and legendary New York Giants lineman Rosey Brown, but he no-showed.
Donna Pihos was left with nothing but her tears. Pete had no clue what was going on. The football world was beside itself. The Hall of Fame Players Association put up a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case.
Readers were left with nothing but rage. "I'd love the chance to give this guy 'knee-moan-ia' with a 34-ounce Louisville Slugger," Sal Miccio wrote to me from New York.
Suggested Mark Rodriguez of Florida, "Let's make him the only urinal at the World Cup!"
Money, help and expressions of support for Pihos poured in. An SI reader named Bill Jacobs, of New York, is sending $5,000 to the Hall of Famers' association. About 20 other checks are on the way. A memorabilia dealer named Hal Jarvis, of Georgia, is planning a monster one-day signing to benefit Pete. Cops from all over wrote and said, in effect, Any chance this guy did anything in my state? 'Cuz I'd love a crack at the sonofab.......!
In Richmond a collector named Jeff Whitmore was already on his way to cracking the case. Whitmore thought, This smells like the work of Shawn Stevens -- a 26-year-old autograph dealer from upstate New York. You read the feedback from people who have dealt with Stevens on signingshotline.com, a sports autograph website, and it becomes clear that he is to memorabilia what Harold Hill is to marching bands.
Then SI got lucky. "Dr. Hart" had made an appointment with Baltimore Colts heroes John Mackey and Lenny Moore and then no-showed. But he screwed up: He left an address at the hotel where they were supposed to meet: 66 Montgomery Street, Fonda, N.Y.
Next came an amazing twist. The week my column ran, a birth announcement appeared in The Leader-Herald of Gloversville, N.Y., near Fonda. It read, "Shawn and Juliette Stevens of 66 Montgomery St., Gloversville, are the parents of twin daughters." Look what the stork brought! Federal agents!
SI reporter Luis Fernando Llosa went to that address. A woman insisted that nobody named Stevens lived there. Llosa thanked her and left. On the way to his car he noted two mailboxes marked STEVENS and an SUV with the plates 4STEVENS.
Meanwhile, a Gloversville memorabilia dealer named Mike Hauser remembered a photo he'd taken of Stevens at a show two years earlier. He sent it to Donna Pihos and to Lou Creekmur with the question, "Is this Dr. Hart?"
"It is him!!!!" Donna e-mailed back. "I am sure of it ... the eyes are his!!!!" Lou and his wife, Caroline, also I.D.'d Stevens.
Bingo.
All this was handed over to the Winston-Salem police, who, with help from U.S. postal inspectors, the Secret Service and the U.S. attorney in Greensboro, were talking with Stevens's lawyer about charges and recovering the memorabilia. (Stevens did not return calls from SI.) "James Hart has been identified as Shawn Stevens," Detective T.J. Taylor said. "We expect an arrest soon."
Memo to Stevens's lawyer: Get paid in cash.
As for the reward money, it's going to be split between Whitmore -- who plans to give his half to Pihos -- and Hauser, who hopes to invest the money in a show to benefit Pete. So Donna is still crying but only because she can't believe the good news. The dental bills are covered, and a good chunk of the day-care bills will be too. "Oh, my heavens," she says, "I'm overwhelmed by the kindness of people." And Pete? "I don't think he grasps what's going on," she says, "but I tell him, 'There are so many people who love and care about you.' And he's so happy to hear that."
Now, don't you feel better?
Issue date: March 22, 2004
Rick Reilly, a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, has been voted National Sportswriter of the Year nine times. His latest book, Who's Your Caddy?, his misadventures caddying for tour pros like Jack Nicklaus and David Duval, hit bookstores in May. He is also the author of the best-selling compliation The Life of Reilly, and the cult classic golf novel, Missing Links, as well as five other books.
From Rick Reilly's column next weeks Sports Illustrated
Two weeks ago, you read here about a Hall of Famer named Pete Pihos, a great receiver who helped the Philadelphia Eagles win two NFL titles. Pete has Alzheimer's, and his poor ex-wife, Donna, who took him back so she could tend to him, was facing a $6,000 dental bill and many times that much for adult day care for him. Hurting for cash, Donna decided to part with some valuable gifts Pete had given her years before: two Pro Bowl jerseys, Pete's old leather pads, and a football signed by Night Train Lane and 24 other Hall of Famers. A man who said he was from upstate New York came to Donna's house in Winston-Salem, N.C., to buy the stuff. He looked only about 25 but called himself Dr. James Hart. He took Donna's memorabilia and left her with $30,000 in rubber checks and a phone number to nowhere.
Turns out this "Dr. Hart" hairball got around. Not long after meeting with Donna, he wrote another bad check, this one for $5,000, and made off with signed photos of 77-year-old Hall of Fame lineman Lou Creekmur, who helped the Detroit Lions to three NFL titles and suffers from the early stages of dementia. "I'd love to beat the crap out of the guy," says Creekmur. "Thank God, I didn't let him near my memorabilia."
"Dr. Hart" also set up meetings with the Pittsburgh Steelers' great defensive lineman Ernie Stautner, who has Alzheimer's, and legendary New York Giants lineman Rosey Brown, but he no-showed.
Donna Pihos was left with nothing but her tears. Pete had no clue what was going on. The football world was beside itself. The Hall of Fame Players Association put up a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case.
Readers were left with nothing but rage. "I'd love the chance to give this guy 'knee-moan-ia' with a 34-ounce Louisville Slugger," Sal Miccio wrote to me from New York.
Suggested Mark Rodriguez of Florida, "Let's make him the only urinal at the World Cup!"
Money, help and expressions of support for Pihos poured in. An SI reader named Bill Jacobs, of New York, is sending $5,000 to the Hall of Famers' association. About 20 other checks are on the way. A memorabilia dealer named Hal Jarvis, of Georgia, is planning a monster one-day signing to benefit Pete. Cops from all over wrote and said, in effect, Any chance this guy did anything in my state? 'Cuz I'd love a crack at the sonofab.......!
In Richmond a collector named Jeff Whitmore was already on his way to cracking the case. Whitmore thought, This smells like the work of Shawn Stevens -- a 26-year-old autograph dealer from upstate New York. You read the feedback from people who have dealt with Stevens on signingshotline.com, a sports autograph website, and it becomes clear that he is to memorabilia what Harold Hill is to marching bands.
Then SI got lucky. "Dr. Hart" had made an appointment with Baltimore Colts heroes John Mackey and Lenny Moore and then no-showed. But he screwed up: He left an address at the hotel where they were supposed to meet: 66 Montgomery Street, Fonda, N.Y.
Next came an amazing twist. The week my column ran, a birth announcement appeared in The Leader-Herald of Gloversville, N.Y., near Fonda. It read, "Shawn and Juliette Stevens of 66 Montgomery St., Gloversville, are the parents of twin daughters." Look what the stork brought! Federal agents!
SI reporter Luis Fernando Llosa went to that address. A woman insisted that nobody named Stevens lived there. Llosa thanked her and left. On the way to his car he noted two mailboxes marked STEVENS and an SUV with the plates 4STEVENS.
Meanwhile, a Gloversville memorabilia dealer named Mike Hauser remembered a photo he'd taken of Stevens at a show two years earlier. He sent it to Donna Pihos and to Lou Creekmur with the question, "Is this Dr. Hart?"
"It is him!!!!" Donna e-mailed back. "I am sure of it ... the eyes are his!!!!" Lou and his wife, Caroline, also I.D.'d Stevens.
Bingo.
All this was handed over to the Winston-Salem police, who, with help from U.S. postal inspectors, the Secret Service and the U.S. attorney in Greensboro, were talking with Stevens's lawyer about charges and recovering the memorabilia. (Stevens did not return calls from SI.) "James Hart has been identified as Shawn Stevens," Detective T.J. Taylor said. "We expect an arrest soon."
Memo to Stevens's lawyer: Get paid in cash.
As for the reward money, it's going to be split between Whitmore -- who plans to give his half to Pihos -- and Hauser, who hopes to invest the money in a show to benefit Pete. So Donna is still crying but only because she can't believe the good news. The dental bills are covered, and a good chunk of the day-care bills will be too. "Oh, my heavens," she says, "I'm overwhelmed by the kindness of people." And Pete? "I don't think he grasps what's going on," she says, "but I tell him, 'There are so many people who love and care about you.' And he's so happy to hear that."
Now, don't you feel better?
Issue date: March 22, 2004
Rick Reilly, a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, has been voted National Sportswriter of the Year nine times. His latest book, Who's Your Caddy?, his misadventures caddying for tour pros like Jack Nicklaus and David Duval, hit bookstores in May. He is also the author of the best-selling compliation The Life of Reilly, and the cult classic golf novel, Missing Links, as well as five other books.
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Now collecting:
Topps Heritage
1957 Topps BB Ex+-NM
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aconte
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Collector of Vintage Golf cards! Let me know what you might have.
City man may face federal charges
By MARK ROBARGE, The Leader-Herald
GLOVERSVILLE - A Gloversville man is expected to face a federal indictment on charges he stole $30,000 worth of sports memorabilia from the ex-wife and caretaker of a Pro Football Hall of Famer suffering from Alzheimer's disease, police said today.
In a case that has drawn the attention of a national sports publication, police in Winston-Salem, N.C., say Shawn Stevens, 26, of 66 Montgomery St., gave Donna Pihos-Howell, the ex-wife of Pro Football Hall of Famer Pete Pihos, three bad checks totaling $30,000 in exchange for some mementos of the former Philadelphia Eagles end's career, including a football signed by 25 Hall of Famers and jerseys Pihos wore in Pro Bowl games in the 1950s.
Winston-Salem Police Detective T.J. Taylor, who is investigating the case along with federal authorities, said this morning the U.S. Attorney's office in Greensboro, N.C., expects to present the case to a federal grand jury soon.
"We're looking to indict him in the next few days," Taylor said.
No one was at Stevens' home on Wednesday night or this morning, and his attorney, Mike Smrtic, could not be reached for comment.
Stevens approached the Pihoses using the pseudonym "Dr. James Hart" and offered to buy the memorabilia to help them pay costs related to Pihos' illness, according to Pihos-Howell.
"He called at the end of November and said he was a doctor in New York who was starting a sports museum," Pihos-Howell said Wednesday.
She said Stevens asked if she and her ex-husband - who she has been caring for since he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's - had any memorabilia they would be interested in selling. When she said they did, he arranged to meet with them at their home in Winston-Salem, N.C., in early February. He also asked her to send a photo of her ex-husband to a post office box in Fonda.
On Jan. 31, Pihos-Howell said they met Stevens at an airport in Greensboro, N.C., and after Stevens bought them lunch, Pihos signed some photos for him, Stevens collected the items the couple were selling and left to return to the airport.
The deal seemed legitimate, Pihos-Howell said, until she tried to cash one of Stevens' three $10,000 checks to pay for some dental work for her ex-husband. The check was returned to her bank as having been drawn on a non-existent account from a New York City bank, she said. Pihos-Howell said she then contacted Ron Mix, a California attorney who serves as president of the National Football League Hall of Fame Players Association, and he told her story to Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly. Reilly, in turn, wrote about the incident in a column that appeared in the magazine's March 8 issue.
"I didn't want anyone else to have to go through this," Pihos-Howell said of the reason she agreed to allow Reilly to chronicle the couple's plight.
Pihos-Howell said she might have never been able to track Stevens down, however, without the help of another local man, Johnstown's Mike Hauser, a sports card and memorabilia show promoter who briefly worked with Stevens.
Hauser said he first became aware of the allegations when Sylvia Mackey, the wife of Hall of Famer John Mackey, contacted him. The former Syracuse University and Baltimore Colts tight end had appeared at a show Hauser worked on with Stevens in November 2002.
The Mackeys had also been approached by "Dr. Hart," Hauser said, but while Stevens failed to show for a meeting with John Mackey and fellow Colts Hall of Famer Lenny Moore, they were able to discover an address in Fonda at his Baltimore hotel. Sylvia Mackey then contacted Hauser for his help.
"Sylvia Mackey called me up and said she was trying to track down Shawn," Hauser recalled Wednesday. "She was beside herself. We talked, and she put me in contact with Donna Pihos."
Hauser said he called Pihos-Howell and sent a picture of Stevens taken at one of the shows they had worked together. Pihos-Howell said she immediately identified Stevens as the man who gave her the bad checks, and she subsequently spoke to law enforcement officials in Winston-Salem, who launched an investigation.
"I just don't understand why he would do something like this," Pihos-Howell said of Stevens.
At the same time Hauser was contacting Pihos-Howell, another memorabilia professional, Jeff Whitmore of Richmond, Va., had his own suspicions about Stevens, suspicions Whitmore said are shared by others in the business.
"We've been tracking this guy [Stevens] for about 18 months on the Web site signingshotline.com," Whitmore said Wednesday. "We're a small community, and we're on the phone or exchanging e-mail every day. We all came to the same conclusion about this guy."
The Web site contains hosts of complaints against Stevens, most claiming that he failed to return merchandise that was sent to him for private signing sessions he had arranged with other legendary professional athletes. In addition, Reilly reports in a column that appears in the latest issue of Sports Illustrated, which hit newsstands Wednesday, that Stevens approached several other Pro Football Hall of Famers as "Dr. Hart," alleging that Stevens gave former Detroit Lions offensive lineman Lou Creekmur a bogus $5,000 check for a private signing session.
Whitmore, a 20-year veteran of the business, said he did business with Stevens on a handful of occasions and said he also had his concerns.
"[The transactions were] nothing big, small stuff, but he would lie about things he had no need to lie about," Whitmore recalled. "Everything Shawn does probably looks OK, but something always throws up red flags."
Whitmore's suspicions were further aroused, he said, when he was approached by Hall of Famer Bobby Shaw at a show in Atlanta. Whitmore said Shaw showed him a letter he had received from "Dr. Hart."
"I knew it was Shawn," Whitmore said.
When Whitmore heard that the Pihoses had been swindled, he said he immediately contacted Pihos-Howell to share his suspicions.
Hauser said he and Stevens worked together on both the Mackey show and a show featuring Hall of Fame wide receiver Charley Taylor in January 2003. But while Hauser termed the shows a success, he said it did not come without some concern.
"I had always done them alone," Hauser said of the shows, which he has been promoting for nearly 15 years, "but [Stevens] approached me and asked me if he could bring a couple of players in. The [November 2002] event went pretty well, but a couple of flags went up."
As they began planning the show that featured Taylor, Hauser said he began hearing from people across the country who had experienced problems with Stevens.
"About a month before [the January 2003 show], I got some phone calls, people telling me to be careful," Hauser recalled. "Then I started getting calls from other promoters, dealers and collectors who had sent him items for private signings and had had problems."
Despite the concerns, Hauser decided to go ahead with the Taylor show, which also featured professional wrestling legend Captain Lou Albano, but found that Stevens had left town for Las Vegas, where his wife's family lives. The two had been planning another show in February 2003 to feature Jim Langer and Charley Leigh, members of the 1972 Miami Dolphins that is the only NFL team to go undefeated for an entire season, but after Hauser finally had an opportunity to talk to Stevens about the concerns he had heard, Hauser said he ended their brief business relationship.
"Let's just say that day we parted ways," Hauser said.
Hauser and Whitmore are in line to split a $5,000 reward put up by the National Football League Hall of Fame Players Association for information in the Pihos case. Whitmore said he plans to give half that reward to help Pihos, while Hauser said he would like to use the money to organize a show that would raise money to help the 80-year-old. Hauser said he has talked to Mix and hopes to work with the association to plan that show.
Taylor said the U.S. Attorney's Office has been in contact with Stevens' attorney and said they hope to recover at least some of the items. But while Pihos-Howell awaits the return of those articles, she said she has been overwhelmed by the support and concern the couple has received.
"We've met so many people, and they've been so great," she said. "I don't think the police would have been able to do anything if it hadn't have been for all the things [these people] have done. They've all been so great to Pete and I."
And Pihos-Howell said she even has some concern for the effect this investigation will have in Stevens' own home.
"I understand [Stevens] and his wife have newborn twins," she said. "I just feel bad that they're going to have to deal with this. They didn't do anything to deserve this."
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