A Little Rock woman who once dated John Rogers, a former Arkansas sports memorabilia dealer who is in prison for selling fake collectibles, admitted last week that she helped create some of the fake items.
According to a plea agreement filed in federal court in Little Rock, 44-year-old Amber Michelle Davis admitted scheming with Rogers from May 2016 until about September 2017 to further his fraud scheme, in which he sold what he falsely represented to be authentic sports memorabilia.
Rogers admitted in March 2017, in a federal courtroom in Chicago, that he used a doctored Heisman Trophy as collateral for a $100,000 loan as part of his scheme to use fake sports memorabilia and phony documents to secure more than $4 million in loans from multiple Arkansas financial institutions.
"In reality, the items were created from materials that were purchased and modified to appear to be historic items," according to a charging document through which Davis pleaded guilty to a single count of wire fraud.
Rogers, now 46, was sentenced in December 2017 to 12 years in prison and was ordered to pay more than $23 million in restitution. He had previously owned Sports Card Plus and Rogers Photo Archive LLC, both based in North Little Rock.
Davis, who in 2017 identified herself in a court document as Rogers' girlfriend of more than 18 months, "was involved in the creation of approximately 25 to 35 fake sports memorabilia items during her time working with John Rogers," according to the indictment.
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It identifies some of those fake items as two Super Bowl I footballs, three Boston Celtics basketballs, at least two Notre Dame footballs, at least three baseballs associated with famous athletes and at least three travel trunks used by athletes.
The items also included several pieces of memorabilia related to the University of Arkansas, a John F. Kennedy briefcase and invoices for six movie prop guns, the indictment alleges.
It says that at Rogers' direction, a person identified only as "Individual 1" represented to people in Arkansas and elsewhere that Rogers had authentic sports memorabilia to sell. It says Davis' role in the scheme "was to help create and deliver items, open financial accounts for the deposit of fraud proceeds, and withdraw money obtained from victims," as well as being "involved in the creation of" about 30 of the fake items.
Some of the money that "Individual 1" made from selling the forged items for Rogers was sent to a bank account that Davis created at Rogers' direction, and some of it was sent to another bank account belonging to Davis, according to the indictment.
The wire fraud charge to which Davis pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. involves a $9,000 wire transfer from paragonauctions.com to her account at the Arkansas Federal Credit Union on Aug. 3, 2016.
Davis, represented by attorney Nicole Lybrand of the federal public defender's office, has agreed to forfeit all property that can be traced to proceeds of the offense. She has been released on various conditions until her sentencing date, which hasn't yet been scheduled.
In 2017, Davis filed a petition in Pulaski County Circuit Court seeking an order of protection from Rogers, who at that time lived in Little Rock. She said then that she and Rogers dated for more than 18 months and had lived together for most of that time. She accused Rogers of threatening to kill her and then himself.
Earlier this year, a gated, 5.5-acre lakefront estate that Rogers once owned in North Little Rock was on the market for $1,695,000. It includes a 12,262-square-foot house with two private docks, an indoor basketball court, a batting cage, a safe room, a theater, a wine cellar, a gym, a sauna and an elevator. On Friday, the property remained for sale, but the price had been slashed by to $1,449,000.
Metro on 09/08/2019