Fraud, Writ Large: Con Man Roils World Of Fountain

[cmeisenzahl]

From today's WSJ:

 

"He Pledged That Products

Would Reach the Famous;

Touched-Up Photo of Bush

By STEVE LEVINE

April 8, 2006; Page A1

 

DALLAS -- Mauricio Aguirre-Orcutt did jail time for impersonating a State Department employee. He later duped a Dallas college into naming him a dean. But he really got in trouble when he tried to con the rarefied world of pen collectors.

 

The 37-year-old Mr. Aguirre-Orcutt is serving a 57-month sentence in a federal prison southeast of Dallas. His crime: fraudulently obtaining a $4,200 fountain pen. During a three-year period, Mr. Aguirre-Orcutt amassed dozens of limited-edition fountain pens, often telling their owners they would be given to celebrities or powerful political leaders.

 

Pen collecting is a genteel hobby whose practitioners gather several times a year to show off and trade their often-bejeweled or engraved instruments, sometimes valued at tens of thousands of dollars. Pen merchants and designers want to get their pens into the hands of famous people for vanity, pride and, at times, profit. Like a picture of a famous actress wearing a designer dress to the Oscars, a famous person using a special pen can generate buzz and boost sales.

[Mauricio Aguirre Orcutt]

 

Collectors tend to trust each other and often make deals on a handshake. That's why Joe McElyea thought nothing of it when the well-spoken Mr. Aguirre-Orcutt walked into his Dallas pen shop in 2001. Imposing at more than 6-feet tall, Mr. Aguirre-Orcutt burnished an air of expertise by requesting an unusual fountain pen tip -- a "B," or broad, nib that creates a stroke resembling a marker. For him, Mr. McElyea recalls, Mr. Aguirre-Orcutt was another of the select group that like "the feeling of putting liquid ink onto great paper. You get some goofy guys who like to use fountain pens." Mr. Aguirre-Orcutt was "the kind of guy who looks at you in the eye and you want to believe everything they say," he says.

 

On the strength of Mr. Aguirre-Orcutt's seeming seriousness, Mr. McElyea says he provided Mr. Aguirre-Orcutt discounts, and even free of charge got manufacturers to install "B" nibs on used pens that Mr. Aguirre-Orcutt said he had bought elsewhere. But after several months, when Mr. Aguirre-Orcutt's credit-card payments repeatedly were rejected, Mr. McElyea finally told him to stop patronizing his shop.

 

In February 2003, Mr. Aguirre-Orcutt told World Lux Inc., a Seattle pen merchant, that he was throwing a "gala event" in Dallas for a Seattle-based "Legal Institute of the Arts" to honor film celebrities Sophia Loren, Francis Ford Coppola and Michael Douglas, according to emails and documents provided by the merchants. The institute didn't exist. But World Lux didn't know that. It opened a line of credit for Mr. Aguirre-Orcutt, sending him a $2,750 Krone "John Hancock" pen, embedded with a splinter from the Revolutionary War leader's desk.

 

In September 2004, Glen Bowen, the publisher of Pen World, a trade magazine, sent Mr. Aguirre-Orcutt a $4,200 David Oscarson "Harvest," an 18-carat-gold fountain pen with an image of a wheat stalk, grass and kernel engraved on the body, after Mr. Aguirre-Orcutt promised that President Bush would use it to sign a Mother's Day proclamation, prosecutors say.

 

Mr. Oscarson, creator of the pen, says getting it into the president's hand could be "worth untold value for my company," adding: "At a personal level, it would have been a keepsake for generations."

...

The pen world has changed since Mr. Aguirre-Orcutt's scams. Merchants say they still do business among each other on a handshake. But, when it comes to individual customers, "if you're dealing with someone new, you almost start out with a suspicious nature until you verify," says Mr. Kallman, the El Paso dealer. 'We're not as naïve as we once were.'"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114445957218020845.html

 

 

Chris

http://amateureconblog.blogspot.com/

[RonB]

Interesting. Thanks for finding this.

 

Ron

[playpen]

Wow, interesting. I just met Mr. Oscarson and we spoke yesterday at the Pen Hospital in NYC. He told me that the president has one of his pens. Was he, in fact, not telling the truth?

[RLTodd]

Wow, interesting. I just met Mr. Oscarson and we spoke yesterday at the Pen Hospital in NYC. He told me that the president has one of his pens. Was he, in fact, not telling the truth?

I thought the President was using a White House Only pattern Cross Townsend Selectip.

[JRodriguez]

Thanks for sharing. It's interesting that this comes up at a time when a few of the FPN community seem to have been scammed by a "newbie" to collecting.

[playpen]

Ok, now I'm really curious. Is there any way on earth we can find out which pen the president is using? I know it's not important in heaven or earth, but on my planet it represents someone's word and once I lose faith in someone, it's gone. I will not be pacing the floors at night but I sure would like to know the answer to this question!