Mansfield, Ohio Coin/Pawn Shop Raided

I'm not sure there are any winners here. Hopefully the justice system is the ultimate winner and any penalties deter future abuses.

First-time offender consideration perhaps?

Also, if I am to believe what I read, there were more consequences to it than that...lives got turned upside down for a while too... house has to be sold... hopefully the terms of probation are strict.

Unlikely. It generally doesn't work out that way, unfortunately. Sounds like both individuals and businesses were victims, if I recall the details correctly. Easier for businesses to absorb the loss than individuals, for sure.

By the way, whatever happened to the Secret Service / Federal investigation mentioned in the early pages of this thread?

Two things one should remember
1. The Law enforcment estsablishment can and will pile charges on when ever they can. Things like RICO can be used when they are fishing as it allows them to look more closely at many more things.

2. A good defense lawyer is almost always better than the best DA.

You can bet the farm that this cost the defendants very close to everything.

Are the people wronged by these people satisfied? Most likely not. But the process of justice has been served and debts will be paid as the court stipulates. It looks like there was a pleza bargain of some kind, so yeah, it is like kissing your brother, but that is what it is. Justice has been served. Time to move on.

I agree, it's time to move on, I just have a few things that I want to wrap up in my thoughts on this, as this whole ordeal affected friends, and to a small extent, myself (not in nearly the same way).

It's a frustrating outcome. While I'm not sure that I ever truly believed that he had some network of people stealing for him, or that it was that sophisticated, it was well known locally that this was where stolen goods ended up. They argued against legislation at the local level (and some at the state level) that would have made the way that they did business harder. I have to believe that this was because even if they weren't actively engaged in the criminal act, they were profiting from the criminal acts, and the lax regulations of ebay.

Bringing this around to the coin side, while I don't believe that SGS as a "product" was illegal, I have contended for quite some time that it was grossly unethical, and preying on the uneducated to turn a quick buck, instead of working to better a community. As it has been pointed out on this forum, SGS did a lot of damage to the coin collecting world.

I guess I had hopes that this would be the end of that.

And maybe it is. I hope it is.

Update:

House is no longer on the market.
Business was sold. Business was renamed.

Now, on the "front" this looks like a good thing. But, what the local news didn't point out, was that he sold it to his Wife's Brother in Law. Ed Kieper. Donna Bence, and Cindy Kieper are sisters.

What does that mean? I'm not sure. The rebranding of the business, and the new "policies" seem like moves in the right direction. But, with family buying the business, I don't know how far out of the realm of control Larry will be.

I've been looking long and hard on ebay, and I'm not seeing any of the "old" auctions up, so either they put the coins back up with new descriptions, or they haven't come back online.

Yes, thanks for the news. Did the house sell or was it just taken off the market?

Failure to pay restitution can lead to incarceration. This rests on the diligence of the PO and consideration by the court. When faced with the likelihood of incarceration, many offenders will "beg, borrow or steal" the funds to satisfy restitution.