Bad Hombres: Jerseys Ashore

Koufax

Koufax

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Tom Brady should sent that kid a plane ticket and a ticket to the home opener - then thank him personally. It would be a thrill he'd never forget.
 
Saints Rest

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Dehere said:
One recent change at the SB is that you now have to scan your credential every time you enter and exit the field. When you scan it your name and picture pops up on a screen and your identity is quickly confirmed by a person monitoring the entry. This was not in place at 48 and definitely was in place at 50. Not sure about 49. All the concourses at the field level are covered by cctv cameras, so once you have a person of interest it's relatively easy to track their movements from any moment they were on the field to the moment they left the stadium.

Maybe this is the end of postgame locker room access at the SB, or maybe it becomes limited to just NFL Films and the national broadcaster. Postgame locker access often seems unnecessary to me and especially at the SB where dozens of players are made available in an interview tent shortly after the game.
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Really? Because a shirt was stolen??
It's not like this guy hurt anyone either directly or indirectly. It's not like he took video of guys naked or left anthrax in the laundry. He took a shirt.
Boo hoo.
 
Van Everyman

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Am I crazy or has there been absolutely no reporting on what happens to Ortega? Is he facing any consequences whatsoever? Every single story I've read talks about how he stole them and then pivots to this very passive "Authorities were able to recover the jerseys" with no mention of, you know, the guy being arrested or anything. What's odd is that while I could imagine Ortega's punishment falls under the "ongoing investigation" part of these articles, there's no mention whatsoever of him even potentially facing any consequences.
 
Van Everyman

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I'm not suggesting it is -- this has already been a historic process to recover sports memorabilia. All I'm saying is that it's completely bizarre to me that of the dozens of articles that have been written about this, all of them seem to be conspicuously avoiding the mention of any consequences for Ortega.
 
PaulinMyrBch

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Van Everyman said:
I'm not suggesting it is -- this has already been a historic process to recover sports memorabilia. All I'm saying is that it's completely bizarre to me that of the dozens of articles that have been written about this, all of them seem to be conspicuously avoiding the mention of any consequences for Ortega.
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I agree, the fact that a warrant was needed to obtain the jersey suggests it wasn't obtained under an agreement of immunity from prosecution. But maybe there is some agreement with Mexican authorities to not extradite because of the cost at their end to deal with the legal hassle should he fail to waive extradition. I'm not current on extradition processes (and I didn't read that article), but its possible authorities are happy with getting the jersey's back and ensuring this guy never gets access to another Super Bowl, but they don't want to make it a big media issue.
 
djbayko

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Byrdbrain said:
So it wasn't just the video, the guy showed people pics of the SB 49 shirt.
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2017/04/04/tom-brady-super-bowl-jerseys-fbi-tip-iteam-exclusive/
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Someone shared this info upthread a while ago. This article confirms and has more details, however. I can't believe this guy was so confident he wouldn't get caught that he'd include it in that picture. And that with even with the video, the authorities probably would t have caught him ifnit hadn't been for this tip.
 
The Talented Allen Ripley

The Talented Allen Ripley

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SI has a longform piece about the theft and recovery of the jerseys.

There was another camera rolling, too, when and where no other was allowed. The Patriots’ in-house video crew had been recording the team’s immediate postgame locker room moments all season, before outside media were let in. On the night of Super Bowl LI, according to an investigator who has seen the footage, their lens panned around the room, and on the MVP as he stepped away from his stall, and then back to Brady’s locker on the right side near the door, where, in the words of one law-enforcement source, “Somebody was standing next to the cookie jar.”
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The six past and present law-enforcement officials, two apiece from NFL security, Patriots security and the FBI’s Boston office, gathered in the conference room at 10 a.m. for a true rarity in Foxborough, a film session for which Bill Belichick was not invited. Among their résumés: stoking the cold case of the $500 million heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990, wrangling a fugitive on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list and investigating the allegation that an NFL quarterback had used deliberately underinflated footballs (you know, Deflategate).

Before lunchtime, more quickly than anyone had anticipated, the group had picked out the culprit—the one person in the locker room before the doors opened who was unknown to the Patriots’ staff. The Fox footage, which the network has since released to the public as part of Jay Glazer’s original reporting on the theft, captured the suspect before and after the crime. At 9:51 p.m. he’s snapping a selfie with Patriots special teams captain Matthew Slater at midfield. At 10:04 p.m. he’s tailing the Bill Belichick group headed into the locker room, slipping in just behind the coach and his girlfriend. At 10:08 p.m., with a mouthful of bottled water, he looks directly into a locker-room security camera. At 10:11 p.m. he’s lurking back against a wall, waiting. At 10:18 p.m. he’s leaving through the same locker-room door by which he entered, now holding an item under his left arm.
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First, the investigators just had a face. Next they needed a name. In the Gillette conference room, they searched the database of 20,000 people credentialed for the Super Bowl—not just media but vendors and security as well. The criteria: male, 40 years and older, white, possibly Latino. That pared the list to about 800 candidates. Investigators went through those headshots alphabetically, one by one, until they reached the letter “O.” Martín Mauricio Ortega, director of the Mexico City–based tabloid La Prensa.

Bam, we got him.
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What happened next is straight out of an episode of Law & Order. Seconds later—literally—one of the FBI Boston agents received a photo on his phone. The source was a Chicago-based FBI agent, well-known among collectors as the lead dog on the government’s probe into fraud in the multibillion dollar sports memorabilia industry. He had gotten a tip.

The informant was 19-year-old Dylan Wagner, a Boston-born lifelong Patriots fan who now lives in Seattle. In December, Wagner sold a game-worn Deion Branch jersey on eBay. He and the buyer emailed each other photos of their collections, as collectors often do, and Wagner was taken aback when the man sent 27 pictures of his robust trove. “This guy is a god in the collecting world,” Wagner thought at the time. Wagner noticed a premier item front and center in one shot: A No. 12 jersey from Super Bowl XLIX, with grass stains matching the shirt Brady had worn that night. “How’d you get it?” Wagner asked. The buyer replied that it was a long story, and he’d tell him later. Wagner followed up, wanting to know if he’d gotten the shirt legally. The buyer never responded.

The jersey hadn’t been reported as stolen at the time, so Wagner didn’t think much of it—other than to share the photo with several collector friends, one of whom works for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in Boston. The day after Super Bowl LI, when the world was learning that Brady was now missing two Super Bowl jerseys, that ATF friend sent Wagner a link to a news story. Red flags went up for both of them.

The friend forwarded Wagner’s information to a contact of his—the FBI Chicago agent. By the end of that week, the Chicago agent called Wagner, requesting all the information he had—name, address, IP address, email chains, etc.

Back at Gillette Stadium on Feb. 13, the Boston agent opened the message: It was the picture of Brady’s Super Bowl XLIX jersey on display in a memorabilia room, linked to the very same man whose picture was staring back at them on the NFL security representative’s laptop.

The next step was clear: Start making plans to go to Mexico.
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DJnVa

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Saints Rest said:
Really? Because a shirt was stolen??
It's not like this guy hurt anyone either directly or indirectly. It's not like he took video of guys naked or left anthrax in the laundry. He took a shirt.
Boo hoo.
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You realize that the next person to take advantage of the situation may not be looking to take a shirt, right?
 
DJnVa

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Saints Rest said:
Fair. And when such a thing happens, it's worth looking into. But this is a LOT of much ado about a shirt. And it wasn't even a thing two years ago when it happened the first time.
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It did happen. Someone got in that was not supposed to. They toughened the rules.

Now, that said, you're not saying they shouldn't take common sense precautions just because the loophole was discovered because someone only stole a jersey? Isn't it lucky that they found out that way?
 
Reverend

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First they came for the jerseys, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a jersey.
 
djbayko

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Saints Rest said:
Fair. And when such a thing happens, it's worth looking into. But this is a LOT of much ado about a shirt. And it wasn't even a thing two years ago when it happened the first time.
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It could be that they weren't too sure anything was actually stolen the first time (as opposed to misplaced or accidentally moved up by an attendant). Not only does the second incident make raise the likelihood of theft much more likely, it also introduces the possiblity that there is a serial thief with the ability to obtain privileged access to Super Bowl Patriots locker rooms - something they probably didn't even dream of the first time around.
 
Papelbon's Poutine

Papelbon's Poutine

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djbayko said:
It could be that they weren't too sure anything was actually stolen the first time (as opposed to misplaced or accidentally moved up by an attendant). Not only does the second incident make raise the likelihood of theft much more likely, it also introduces the possiblity that there is a serial thief with the ability to obtain privileged access to Super Bowl Patriots locker rooms - something they probably didn't even dream of the first time around.
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You feel like if the first one had been misplaced or 'moved up' (not sure what that means or if it's a typo) and never surfaced, they wouldn't think it got stolen by someone? I mean, that was kind of the whole reason Brady put it in his personal luggage wasn't it?
 
djbayko

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Papelbon's Poutine said:
You feel like if the first one had been misplaced or 'moved up' (not sure what that means or if it's a typo) and never surfaced, they wouldn't think it got stolen by someone? I mean, that was kind of the whole reason Brady put it in his personal luggage wasn't it?
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Typo. I meant "moved" only.

Yeah, I definitely think it's possible that all involved parties started to take things more seriously after the second incident. I'll have to take at your word that Brady put it in his bag because of 2014, since I haven't read anything about his rationale. But even if that's the case (and it certainly seems plausible), there's a big difference between some people having their doubts and the FBI being mobilized. And then there's the other part I mentioned above about two occurrences possibly escalating prevailing theory from a stupid mistake or crime of opportunity to something more sinister. Saints Rest asked why it wasn't "a thing" the first time around.
 
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