The hum of conversation meshing with the clink of silverware created a pleasant serenade inside The Secret Garden restaurant, where a dozen antique hunters — mostly women — noshed on tuna salad, quiche, key lime pie, and iced tea on a recent afternoon. Elsewhere in the Montgomery Street Antique Mall, shoppers strolled quietly, picking through the treasures cluttering hundreds of booths.
“It’s like a step back in time,” said Paul Douglas of Irving, who sometimes visits the Fort Worth mall to find Dr. Douglas Wonder Bakers, a cornbread and biscuit pan produced and sold by his father.
Douglas considers Montgomery the best antique mall in Fort Worth. The store’s 61,000 square feet of floor space, 160-plus vendors, and easy access to I-30 make it one of the Metroplex’s most popular destinations. Readers of Fort Worth Weekly and Fort Worth Star-Telegram regularly vote it the area’s best antique mall.
Douglas, like many collectors, finds serenity here.
“It’s calming and quiet,” he said. “It’s like being in a library.”
Beneath the calm lies another story. Thefts and burglaries have plagued the business. Some vendors complain that store managers downplay the problems and, on at least one occasion, could have turned off security cameras on the same day the business was burglarized. And two former co-owners accused the current owners of theft and embezzlement of an estimated $1 million in a lawsuit that was settled in 2012.
A couple of vendors recently packed up their goods and left. They reported losing $12,000 worth of jewelry and other items in a burglary and said it wasn’t the first time they’d been targeted.
Most vendors interviewed for this article said light thievery is commonplace in businesses where customers poke around untended booths in huge stores while employees are often busy elsewhere. Fine jewelry is a favored target, due to its small size and high value. Most jewelry is locked in display cases, but dealers say thieves can pick locks and pop them open in the blink of an eye. For other items, thieves get even more creative.
“Couples can come in with a baby carriage and a baby wrapped in a blanket, and they’ll put a piece of crystal or something in the blanket,” said Erik Yang, a Dallas antiques dealer who has rented booths in a half-dozen antique malls over the years.
Yang has never rented space at Montgomery mall, but he’s heard from other dealers that the theft rate is high. “There are only so many security cameras you can put up and only so many people you can have walking the floor,” he said. “And thieves are clever.”
Many vendors don’t bother calling police when items get shoplifted. Some at the Montgomery mall say they’ve lost items worth hundreds of dollars. They didn’t call police, and they don’t think store managers care.
“The owners are apathetic about it,” said a former vendor who didn’t want to be named. “If you went to them about something being stolen, it was like, ‘Well, too bad, what do you want us to do?’ ”
Two former vendors, Bill Cutler and Ray DeRusse, went a step further. They filed a lawsuit in 2013 alleging that mall owners and employees were involved in some of the thefts and burglaries. It’s not the first time a vendor has made the claim. A man who reported $50,000 in losses in a burglary in 2001 told police the same thing.
Owner Chris Sheidler denied the claims, saying he’s been in business for 19 years, works in an honest and ethical manner, and runs a huge store filled with happy vendors, employees, and customers who have been with him for years. The owner is tall and open-faced with thick sandy hair and a friendly manner. He characterized DeRusse as a conspiracy theorist.
“This is my business,” Sheidler said. “Do you think I like having a reputation that people can break in this place and steal merchandise? It’s awful.”
Thieves often target retail estab-lishments, including Montgomery mall. Most thefts occur during business hours. Montgomery has had about a half-dozen burglary attempts since 2001, Sheidler said.
“Do I think we have a lot [of thefts]?” he said. “I think it’s too much. Any is too much.”
********
Former owner Matt Robb and his wife, Beverly, alleged in a civil suit that the mall’s current owners, Sheidler and his wife Elizabeth, used various schemes to steal money from them. These days, Robb refuses to discuss it.
“I cannot make any comment about that at all,” he said. “I don’t have any connection to that antique mall.”
The Robbs had plenty to say 16 months ago. After the Sheidlers sued them in April 2012, claiming breach of fiduciary duty, the Robbs responded with a counterclaim in November of that year. They accused the Sheidlers of reneging on salary arrangements and defrauding and embezzling money from the company, in part by changing information on merchandise tags and reneging on floor space agreements. The Robbs blamed the Sheidlers for $1 million in losses the Robbs sustained from 2006 to 2012.
The two couples had formed Sheidler Robb Inc. (SRI) in 1994 to own and operate the huge antique mall they were creating at the northeast corner of I-30 and Montgomery Street. Each person would own 25 percent of the company stock. The couples served as co-directors and officers, with Beverly Robb listed as president, her husband as secretary, Elizabeth Sheidler as vice president, and her husband as treasurer. They paid themselves equal salaries, and each was allotted the same amount of floor space to display and sell their own antiques and collectibles.
In 2006 the Robbs left Texas and moved to Missouri but continued to co-own the Montgomery mall. Before departing, they agreed to reduce their combined salaries from about $100,000 a year to $80,000 and to increase the Sheidlers’ combined salary to $120,000 since the Sheidlers would be “handling more of the day-to-day operations of the mall,” the lawsuit said. Sheidler, as treasurer, made the adjustments in salaries. The Robbs said the directors made no other changes in the business arrangement.
The Sheidlers sent the Robbs their salaries for several years but reduced the amount to $45,000 in 2011 and sent nothing in 2012, the Robbs alleged in the lawsuit. The Robbs accused their co-owners of using the Robbs’ share of floor space to sell their own merchandise, while moving the Robbs’ inventory to a back room. They also accused the Sheidlers of erasing or altering tags on merchandise owned jointly by SRI.
The Sheidlers “engaged in a fraudulent scheme to forge and falsify dealer account codes over a number of years and consequently have embezzled substantial sums,” the Robbs charged.
In another scheme alleged in the lawsuit, Chris Sheidler was accused of taking more than $61,000 from an escrow checking account without authorization in 2011 and 2012.
The Robbs demanded a directors meeting on April 25, 2012. The Sheidlers filed their lawsuit the same day, saying the Robbs failed in their fiduciary responsibilities by moving away, opening their own antique store in Missouri, neglecting their duties to the Montgomery mall, and demanding salaries they didn’t earn.
Sheidler denied all the accusations that the Robbs made in the lawsuits. He repeated that to the Weekly and compared the Robbs’ claims to a messy breakup.
“It was an ugly divorce,” he said. “The child was this place. It was lawyers trying to outplay another lawyer. I wanted to buy the Robbs out, they wanted to sell out. How do they get more money, how do I pay less? It’s a butt-kicking contest.”
Meanwhile, vendors were having their own problems. DeRusse said he approached Matt Robb in 2012 with concerns about thefts and burglaries and suspicions that the crimes were part of an inside job. Robb assured him this wasn’t the case, DeRusse said.
“He said Chris was doing everything he could to run a clean business,” DeRusse recalled.
Robb had heard rumors about mall employees being involved in thefts and burglaries, but he disputed those claims in a short phone conversation with the Weekly.
“I heard about it a long time ago,” he said. “There is no relevance to it. I’m quite confident they are not inside [jobs].”
DeRusse had sued the city and two police officers in 2013 in a case related to a 2012 burglary. DeRusse alleged in the suit that police wouldn’t act on evidence that he believes connected store employees to some of the thefts. That case was dismissed.
********
If anybody thinks we solved these crimes of theft and burglary at MSAM by speculation or looking into a crystal ball or employing the tactics of a unifying theory or grand conspiracy we have bad news for you. That’s not how we did it. I (we) used highly detailed forensics analysis of audio, video, documents and informants. That’s how I (we) did it. Here is an example to show the level of detail and how it works.
Lets look at the October glass door/window smashing followed by the late September door/windows smash at the south side of the building.
The burglar bars were put in place on or about August 3, 2012. If a burglar sees burglar bars on a door or window this represents a significant challenge to entering a building so they move on to another area. In late September 2012 and on October 9, 2012 the employee suspects and/or their accomplices smashed the door/window glass in the same location at the I-30 south door of MSAM. This was done two previous times once in late July and once in early August of 2012.
If there are burglar bars, you’re not going to get in so why smash the glass? A “real burglar” would never do that. Why not smash the windows along the same wall just further north with no burglar bars and no cameras installed? These windows are about chest high (but looking at the suspect accomplices on video you can see at least one of the suspects is quite capable of jumping in a chest high window).
So the reason to smash the glass in September and October must be for reasons other than getting in and burglarizing the building. By this time the employees quit cooperating and for good reason, so one will have to look for clues in a dozen other locations and there, buried in the 911 audio tape we found it. This is where Steve McDonald revealed why the door was broken on October 9, 2012. In his own words he said something on tape that needed to be recorded for Detective Finch to hear. In fact it was so important that it be on tape he said it once and could not get it out because he was interrupted by the 911 dispatcher, so he came back a few minutes later and repeated it again, successfully planting the evidence in the 911 tape.
This planting of evidence by Steve McDonald is somewhat similar to police who plant weapons, drugs or incriminating evidence at crime scenes to mislead the public. It happens all the time. In conversations with the DoJ regarding the police, I suppose when the FWPD arrived at the repeated crimes at MSAM they found such neat, staged burglaries, from their years of experience as crime scene manipulators it looked like a perfectly normal, familiar and acceptable staged crime scene…. it did not raise any flags.
Similarly, in previous staged burglaries at MSAM, we found key indicators of crime scene tampering and planted evidence by the people responsible for controlling the burglary alarm company account. That would be Mr. Sheidler, who from news reports claims the massive lawsuit by his partners stemming from millions in losses to theft and fraud by him amounts to a bad marriage and nasty divorce. That is the first time have I have ever heard a lifelong thief and burglary ring leader blame a corporate spouse for their crimes. I feel sorry for Elizabeth.
Finally the late September glass smashing previously mentioned was the displaying of a growing anger, frustration and aggression by the in house burglary team principally Paul Benavidez and Judy Phillips. This display of anger was over that fact that I discovered exactly what employee was doing what and what role they played. A former employee has indicated that most of the thefts and burglaries are employee involved. She’s right, I would imagine more than 90 percent of missing property is more than likely Mr. Sheilder’s team.
If you lived in a condominium complex for senior citizens, were going out of town for a couple of weeks on vacation, and Mr. Sheidler just happened to be the manager, guess who would be calling you in the middle of your vacation to tell you you’ve been burglarized? You guessed it. And guess what the FWPD would say? It looks like a perfectly normal crime scene to me. “Is there anything else we can do to help Mr. Sheidler”? And Chris would say, “thanks for everything you have been very helpful, see you in a couple of weeks”. This would make a comedy sketch except for the fact there are hundreds of victims.
PART II
The Matt and Beverly Robb phenomenon; co-conspirators or innocent stakeholders? We’ll see what the evidence shows.
Another example of fabrication of evidence to mislead and this is just one of hundreds of pieces of evidence in this case. This one is a case of planting evidence. In mid-September of 2012 Mr. Sheidler told Michelle Dooley who was working security at the I-30, that there were numerous reports of attempted break-in of local businesses in the area during our “burglary and attempted break-ins” at Montgomery Street Antique Mall. An extensive and exhaustive search of ALL official records during July through October of 2012 yielded zero results for any such information. As usual Mr. Sheidler was lying.
When I spoke with Matt Robb in late 2012 about the August 2012 almost $12,000.00 staged burglary at Montgomery Street Antique Mall, he indicated that antique malls are a magnet for thieves and burglars. He said that this is a common occurrence at antique malls all over the place. It is as he put it “part of the cost of doing business”, “the nature of the business” etc. In other words he tried to normalize and make this conduct and its results acceptable and normal by downplaying the gravity of the situation while simultaneously attempting to divert attention from the actual burglars.
So we decided to check and see how normal this conduct was at his antique malls in Missouri called Relics.
The police detective we communicated with had never heard that theft and burglary was a problem at antique malls in Springfield, Missouri. To test the veracity of these claims by Matt Robb the liaison with the Springfield police department (phone and emails) looked up their antique mall address and lo and behold found evidence that contradicts Mr. Robb’s claims. The investigators we spoke with at the time (late 2012) had never heard of a theft and burglary problem at any antique malls. In fact they went as far as providing evidence that only one police report had been filed the entire year of 2012 for property missing (dishes) valued at 450.00 or less. This is in direct contrast to the problem Mr. Sheidler has where they are responsible for amounts in the tens of thousands of dollars per year.
Part of the reason Matt Robb was painting a false and misleading image of MSAM was because he was in litigation with the burglary team leader and did not want to jeopardize his ability to recover the money/property that had already been converted.
On March 13, 2014 at the Hazel Harvey Peace facility, Chief Jeff Halstead indicated to us that his personal assistant Sgt. Matt Welch, would be calling us in “two weeks” to discuss what turns out to be police misconduct, fraud, abuse, lying, malfeasance, unnecessary aggression and of course antiques and the Bernie Maddoff of antiques theft and burglary, Christopher Sheidler. Two weeks would place us at or around March 27, 2014. Instead on April 1, 2014 with no explanation why the Sgt. did not call we received a phone call from a Captain Dean who began by saying he had questions about the MSAM burglary case(s). Captain Dean spent the entire conversation in a vain attempt to clear the fraudulent conduct police officers of wrongdoing. In other words he tried to normalize criminal conduct on the part of the police (conspiracy), make it acceptable by rearranging and redefining words and phrases. He tried to convince me that the difference between lying and fabrication of evidence is as wide as the Grand Canyon. The only Grand Canyon is in his head, and that is a big hole. He tried to redefine rulings by Judge Hrabal to no avail (this is where the lawyer for the city invoked state statute 101 and its subsections and in doing so used our lawsuit as a guide and she pointed out where the police were lying, engaging in malfeasance, making negligent misrepresentations, etc limiting liability to the City). Those findings are central to the invocation and application of 101 and its subsections. And there was a follow up email from the lawyer for the City confirming that ruling. The fact that she filed a separate order, and it was mistakenly signed before drafting the actual ruling, is immaterial to the facts in her email and the written transcript from the parties. The Captain cannot change those facts and rulings. His arm-twisting tactics led him to declare that our audio/video expert cannot be relied upon since some of his statements condemning Detective Finch and his supervisor’s conduct were oral rather than written and sought to dismiss and brush that aside as immaterial. This is where our forensics expert made statements such as, “the FWPD is trying to shut down this burglary investigation before it gets started”. “They are fabricating evidence to supplant the actual evidence”. “They are acting very much out of the ordinary; unusual conduct, unheard of in law enforcement circles” etc.
There is only one problem with Captain Dean trying to change the facts and evidence in this case. The Federal Government recorded ALL of the conversations between Mr. Dickey and me, so we cannot get around the facts and evidence which implicate the Fort Worth Police Department as an active supporter and con-conspirators with Chris Sheidler as the burglary team leader.
In addition, Captain Dean is ignoring or unaware of the fact that under a civil prosecution the threshold is 51 percent – a preponderance of the evidence necessary for a civil conviction of Mr. Sheidler and his burglary team. We have far, far more than is necessary for that. In fact, combined, the evidence is so strong had Mr. Sheidler been Black or Hispanic he would have been interviewed from jail by the Fort Worth Weekly.
In the upcoming May 10, election the FWPD are asking for a renewal of the CCPD which provides tax money gathered and injected into a failed police state…the FWPD. If you want to pay people to create, facilitate, nurture and carry out civil and criminal conspiracies and abuse a host of select citizens, then by all means vote for the tax. If you want to send them a message citizen abuse is so 1950’s, then vote against this ridiculous false flag operation called the CCPD. VOTE NO.
I accidentally posted the rough draft of my comments the final copies will be posted here at this discussion group.
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/msam-csam/info
Conspiracy theory claim by Mr. Sheilder.
Mr. Sheidler claims in the article that I am a “conspiracy theorist”. This is one of those end-all denigrating phrases attached to a person as though the crimes and burglaries at MSAM are the result of someone being delusional or concocting conspiracies. This denigrating phrase is a cousin to Godwin’s Law.
Godwin’s law is an Internet adage asserting as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches “1” That is, if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Hitler or Nazism.
There are many corollaries to Godwin’s law; some considered more canonical (by being adopted by Godwin himself) than others. For example, there is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whomever mentioned the Nazis (in this case conspiracy theorist) has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress. This principle is itself frequently referred to as Godwin’s law. It is considered poor form to raise such a comparison arbitrarily with the motive of ending the thread. There is a widely recognized corollary that any such ulterior-motive invocation of Godwin’s law will be unsuccessful.
This claim is so ludicrous here is how it sounds. “Yes, the reason we are burglarizing and committing theft against the tenants and have been for years is because Ray DeRusse is a conspiracy theorist. And if we find out he is not, then we are still going to burglarize and commit theft because somewhere on the planet someone is a conspiracy theorist. That is the reason we are doing it”.
On October 3, 2012 at ~12:30pm, Mr. Sheidler admitted in front of witnesses at the end of aisle 4 that he was lying to the tenants and police about everything regarding the burglaries and thefts. Several tenants and numerous customers overheard Mr. Sheidler make this admission among other admissions.
In addition, one of the tenants who overheard his admission was dealer 401 who has been repeatedly burglarized by Judy Phillips, one of his burglary team leaders. We know this for a fact because it’s on the record and a former employee came forward to verify it to an independent third party.
Mr. Sheidler wanted me removed from the premises as punishment for teasing the truth out of him, but he scored an additional and even bigger blunder with his superb acting. Realizing what he had done in admitting the truth, he wanted me removed from the premises so he made a 911 call that lasted over 6 minutes and was seen and overheard by numerous individuals. What did he do that seals his fate as a burglary team leader? You would be hard pressed to find a copy of the 911 audiotape because it does not exist. That’s right, his acting abilities were so superb he was faking the entire 911 emergency call. Lucky for the victims Detective Finch has a videotape of him making the call.
This series of blunders prompted Steve McDonald, just six days later, to plant misinformation (fake evidence) in another 911 audiotape from 0ctober 9, 2012. Mr. Sheidler now hopes that by smearing me with ‘conspiracy theorist” will do enough to solve his dilemma and convince his supporters he has not been stealing from his tenants for this long period of time.
After a while a pattern begins to emerge and the only people engaged in name calling and complaining, like Mr. Sheidler, are the ones actually caught lying, cheating, stealing, engaging in malfeasance and misconduct…. many of them jailable offenses if you will.
Does the conspiracy between Mr. Sheidler and the FWPD include other vested interests? Yes it does.
The Fort Worth Star Telegram writes stories of local interest, sometimes about burglaries. But they have never, ever written a single story about the burglaries at Mr. Sheidler’s antique mall. Some of these staged burglaries are huge. Why have they not been written about it in the local paper? Lets look at the facts.
Fact . It is a well-known fact that Mr. Sheidler, the burglary team leader, collects a minimum of 10 dollars per month per tenant allocated for advertising in the FW Star Telegram. It’s written into the tenant contract. (More on this legally unenforceable fake contract later).
FACT. An in-depth search of the history of the antique mall has yielded abundant information on paid advertising, coupled with positive reviews by the newspaper.
Fact . The newspaper monitors 911 calls on a scanner for news to include in their publication and may or may not read the court dockets for civil-criminal cases on which to build a story.
Question. If they, the Fort Worth Star Telegram reporters, listened to 911 calls from the mall tenants why have they never called the tenants-victims to ask questions or written a story about the theft and burglary problem at the mall? In more than 16 years of tenant abuse they have never done that, why not?
Here is a perfect analogy from a child molestation case of why they have never done that.
Jerry Sandusky the child predator from Penn State, was molesting children his entire life and his wife knew about it but she refused to turn him in, why? The money. If she turned him in the lavish lifestyle and suitcases full of fake earnings would dry up. A woman receiving child support from a former sexual predator spouse will usually not turn them in for fear of losing the monthly child support payments…….More often than not, it’s the money.
That is the reason the Fort Worth Star Telegram will not investigate nor write a story about the thefts and burglaries at MSAM because if they do the adverting money will dry up.
There is no other logical explanation other than the silent, “you keep adverting with us on a regular basis and we won’t report you are running a theft and burglary ring out of your facility.” If the newspaper reports a 500 or 1000-dollar burglary of tools or an air compressor out of a warehouse or someone’s garage, why not a $30,000.00 burglary out of an antique mall? That makes no sense. The newspaper will come up with numerous excuses on why, but as Judge Judy says, “if it doesn’t make sense it isn’t true.” And this claim makes perfect sense.
With respect to the comment by Sue Brown about “lack of evidence”. She does not possess the intellectual acumen and resources to unravel and untangle massive institutional fraud like others can. They stole over $6,000.00 in valuables out of her locked cabinet and privately she has always said it was an inside job. But she will not say it publicly.
The verdict on Mr. Sheidler’s business partners who filed a lawsuit against him is in. Matt and Beverly Robb are not innocent stakeholders in this massive theft and burglary fraud by Chris Sheidler and his employees.
I called in late October and early and or November 2012 to speak with them about the theft and burglary problem at the antique mall. After avoiding me for several weeks Matt Robb finally spoke up and provided a false impression by making a glowing assessment of Chris Sheidler. Then about 15 days later he reversed himself and filed a massive thirty-page counterclaim (lawsuit) against Mr. Sheidler painting a starkly different picture of his partner.
So lets recap. First you tell me he’s a great guy, all the while you have been cobbling together an extensive cache of evidence of fraud, theft and conversion against him? Matt and Beverly Robb knew that Mr. Sheidler was committing theft and staged burglaries against his tenants, but they did not complain until after they could no longer sustain the financial losses and fraud against them. Mr. Sheidler filed what amounted to a fraudulent lawsuit against them and it was only then that they sought to recover funds and converted property from their partner. The fact they did not act quickly on this when they found out about it makes it very difficult for them to defend their position. As it regards the tenants/victims, Matt and Beverly Robb are not innocent stakeholders. They are every bit as guilty as Mr. Sheidler because they knew about his illegal activity and did not warn the tenants. They must have realized the FWPD was part of the reason these thefts and burglaries would continue unabated, apparently from the massive theft and fraud, which took place in 2001 against them, and the way it was handled by the FWPD. This was confirmed by Mr. Sheidler himself who on August 19, 2012 said, “the police will never do anything”. How did he know that? Lots of experience as a con artist. (By the way his other business partner Detective Finch has that on videotape).
Their counterclaim detailed losses retroactive to 2006, which among other things means the following.
1). Mr. Sheidler wasted no time defrauding his partners as soon as they walked out the door to Missouri.
2). His partners knew about it about since at least 2009.
3). The tenants were going to continue to be victimized if someone did nothing to intervene and as shown below still are being victimized.
This is a small sampling of thefts and burglaries since 2008, many, many more are not revealed to anyone or reported to the police for fear of employee retaliation as one tenant put it. In October of 2012 after Mr. Sheidler revealed his lying to the tenants and police, they struck again.
John B. lost a $1000.00 sterling belt out of a locked cabinet on aisle 5. They keep telling him that customers are prying his cabinet door slightly ajar and fishing out his items with a wire of some sort but they never provide any evidence of that. History has shown and proven that more than likely is a lie.
They did the same thing to Jim S. and Andy M. who lost thousands in jewelry out of locked cabinets over many months.
Lind W. lost over 20,000.00 in jewelry from a locked cabinet over a 12-month period.
Evelyn W. lost over 20,000.00 in fine jewelry and Judy Phillips (one of the confirmed mall burglars) intentionally waited to notify her just 15 before closing at 6:00pm knowing she was in Dallas and could not come in and investigate.
NEXT. What Detective Finch and his supervisors did that makes them part of a criminal conspiracy actionable in both civil and criminal court.
Not to change the subject but employees can be prosecuted under the same nucleus of operative facts for providing support to the burglars.
Five Former Madoff Employees Convicted Of Fraud
Published March 24, 2014
| MarketWatch Pulse
NEW YORK – Five former employees of Bernie Madoff have been found guilty of securities fraud and conspiracy in Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme. The jury brought back a guilty verdict after four days of deliberations and a six month trial that took place in Manhattan. Annette Bongiorno, Madoff’s longtime secretary, Daniel Bonventre, director of operations for investments, JoAnn Crupi, an account manager, and two computer programmers Jerome O’Hara and George Perez were considered the top lieutenants to the former fraudster and were accused of helping him carry out the massive fraud that bilked clients out of billions of dollars over several decades. Frank DiPascali, Madoff’s former finance chief at Bernie L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC had pleaded guilty to assisting Madoff and was the government’s key witness in the case against the five former employees. Madoff insisted he ran the Ponzi scheme alone, when caught in 2008. He is currently serving a 150 years prison sentence. “The scheme these defendants helped perpetrate cost innumerable investors their life savings. Now it likely will cost the defendants their freedom,” said Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. The trial established that the Madoff fraud began at least as far back as the early 1970s, decades before it came to light, said Bharara in a statement.
Copyright © 2014 MarketWatch, Inc.
Did anybody see a picture of the secretary, Annette Bongiorno ? That right there should have raised red flags for investors. Good lord with billions in the bank if that is all he could afford he should receive another 75 years just for that.
http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0LEVzbGbl5ThBgACIZXNyoA?p=Annette+Bongiorno&fr=moz35&fr2=piv-web
I understand that Sue Brown, a tenant at Mr. Sheidler’s theft and burglary operations, is upset with my comment regarding her personally. Let me lay out my rationale for the comment. First of all Mrs. Brown is the one who informed us that, “its already starting at the Arlington Mall” referring to the burglary and theft problem”. She had a copy of the lawsuit from Matt and Beverly Robb against Mr. Sheidler. This lawsuit is littered with references to theft and conversion of property in the hundreds of thousands of dollars stretching back to 2006.
These incidences of theft and burglary against the tenants began long before 2006 when Matt and Beverly were still in Fort Worth Texas, not in 2006.
Mr. Sheidler and his partners were hoping the tenants never saw this lawsuit. They focused part of their efforts on that.
If a grown adult does not understand what constitutes evidence then they are going to be victimized by their handlers at the Mall.
In addition to the lawsuit evidence, when Judy Phillips attempts to intimidate, aggressively forbidding tenants from discussing theft and burglary, when Paul Benavidez threatens tenants, starts yelling and cursing out them out for discussing the crimes, when Chris is shown on videotape sanitizing and doctoring a crime scene; these are just some of the pieces of evidence against this burglary team. This is a drop in the bucket compared to what we have. When I told Steve McDonald we had video tape evidence from the service station near the antique mall he did not say a word………..but he took off in a panic running to talk with Dennis. What does that tell you?
I have blown the whistle on cases larger than this and have had to pay a very heavy price in the form of harassment and false flag operation tainted unlawful arrests for telling the truth. I know what to expect from the mall owners, their partners the police, and the tenant victims.
Ray, you’re a very good writer and have given a lot of interesting and intriguing information. Keep it coming. Air it all out and update us readers.
If you read the police report numbers 01104202 of a staged burglary in February 12, 2001 and another staged burglary from December 10, 2001 number 019131177 you see Mr. Sheidler’s fingerprints all over the place. In the February burglary originally a $70,000.00 burglary later determined to be over 100K by a rare coins dealer who lost over 35K, they went to extraordinary lengths to stage this thing. He (Mr. Sheilder) planted a combination of physical and oral verbal misinformation evidence.
In the almost 60 page February police report, the burglary alarm company seemed exasperated trying to tell the police that the story Mr. Sheidler was telling them could not have happened as it pertains to cutting the alarm wires. But they could not legally say to the police, “we did not receive an alarm signal but the owner Mr. Sheidler appeared at the scene and then there was a burglary, what do you think happened?” In other words how does Mr. Sheidler get a signal but not us? The police did not know how electronics worked in that era apparently. If you break the circuit whether by cutting the wires or separating the contacts when opening a door the alarm company gets the same signal…….a breach. They kept repeating that in the police report over and over again, “we did not get a signal”. They were trying to tell the police someone keyed in the code in the keypad and then came out and cut the wires……but they could not legally say that to the police because then they would have found the burglar, their client.
Mr. Sheidler planted so much evidence in that 7 month period on that almost 60 page police report its too much to list.
In the December police report a few months later, Mr. Sheidlers’ partner Beverly Robb was the intended victim and boy did she get it. The police described her office as a devastating wreckage completely trashed. Her furniture was moved around looking for her valuables, electronic equipment was ripped off walls all over the place, “all over the building”, (Someone had lots of time and knew where everything was). This is one for Ripley’s believe it or not. The burglar had already had so much success in previous burglaries and thefts at the mall they confidently sat down at Beverly’s desk opened her personal mail and read. (It’s in the report). Know any burglars that do that? They also stole thirty thousand dollars of her personal property including checks and credit card receipts made out to Montgomery Street Antique. I guess when they deposit those funds made out to the mall police should find out who the burglar is.
In reference to the August 2012 burglary. Paul Benavidez, Mr Shiedler’s warehouse manager, while sitting down at the dock door suddenly and without warning or provocation began ranting about how he hated Tex Davisson and his wife Madellaine and how they got what they deserved. And how happy he was when she passed away. He went into such extreme and hateful detail I had no choice but to contact Tex Davissdon and inquire about the burglary they suffered a decade before.
The following information was part of a torts action filed against the FWPD. (Just for the record, they are not out of the woods yet).
On October 30, 2012 the plaintiff spoke with Tex Davisson who had been a tenant at the same facility as Mr. Cutler. Mr. Davisson and his wife Madeline suffered a ~$50,000.00 loss of fine jewelry recorded on February 12, 2001, see police report number 01104202 exhibit P-7 attached. The following conversation was had between the Plaintiff and Mr. Davisson.
P. Tell me what happened?
TD. Well there was a burglary; we had a pretty big loss around $50,000.00.
P. How did they get in?
TD. They broke in through, I think, it was the garage door at the corner of the building, as I recall.
P. There were no cameras then, what about the burglary alarm; did it go off?
TD. No, it was turned off.
P. What? How did that happen?
TD. Well Chris Sheidler told me he turned it off.
P. Why did he turn it off, why did he do that?
TD. Well that’s the thing, he told me he turned it off and forgot to turn it back on.
P. So he turned it off, there was a burglary and……naturally he was the one who discovered the burglary and called 911, correct?
TD. Yes.
P. He gave you no clue as to why he did that?
TD. He was very vague about why; he never could give me an explanation that made any sense.
P. Do you have a copy of the police report?
TD. No I never got one, I don’t think I even have the number anymore.
P. I’ll get one and send you a copy.
TD. Oh yeah there is one other thing, there was lots of burglaries at antique malls up and down I-35 at the time and they think it was the same group. A group of Gypsy type people, a well organized group.
P. Who told you that, where did you get that information?
TD. I told the police and they were looking into cases from San Antonio, Dallas, Arlington and I think Houston too. I got it from Chris Sheidler.
P. Chris told you that?
TD. It was either Matt or Chris, yeah I’m pretty sure it was Chris.
P. OK, thanks for speaking with me Tex, I’ll get back with you.
3.) Plaintiff proceeded to obtain a copy of Mr. Davisson’s police report number 01104202 dated February 12, 2001, a true and correct copy is attached here as exhibit P-7. Beginning at page 48 this exhibit is littered with references to burglaries in other cities in Texas. Mr. Sheidler was quite successful at convincing Tex Davisson and Beverly Robb, one of his three business partners, as well as the FWPD, that the burglars at Montgomery Street Antique Mall were the same person(s) burglarizing other malls or businesses around the state.
In late 2012 and early 2013, I contacted all police departments by phone and email from cities along I-35 and also in Houston, Texas and asked them if they heard of this burglary ring mentioned by Mr. Sheidler. I asked them to search their files and databases for any reference to any filings related to his claim.
The initial verbal and written responses from police departments were, outlandish to ludicrous, and “he’s been watching too many movies type responses”, but they all agreed to search anyway. Nothing matching Mr. Sheidlers claim was found in any city. Dallas sent a huge database for that time period and asked me to search it myself, but that they had already looked with no results. The city of Arlington sent one police report for a break-in of an antiques business which lost autographed miniature football helmets and a cash register box with cash and checks. There was another incident in San Marcos, Texas but those burglars proved not to be of the caliber Mr. Sheidler would employ for his theft and burglary operation.
Mr. Sheidler for more than fifteen years has relied on meticulously planting evidence and misinformation where necessary to perfect his illegal operations.
Throughout August and early September after the August 2-3 burglary, the story Judy Phillips was telling the tenants was that the video cameras had malfunctioned and broken down and that this was a regular occurrence. In one carefully documented instance she walked up to Bill Cutler and others discussing the burglary and told them that the cameras malfunctioned regularly and turned off and on all the time (motion activated cameras are supposed to work that way), and with a laugh added a flippant comment that part of the problem was considering who installed them Richard Zinn her own clerk.
So two days later I walked up to her at the main counter and the following conversation was recorded on her own video cameras. (at the main counter).
RD. Hi Judy could I see the invoices, work orders, receipts for the repair of the video cameras?
JP. Why do you want to see that?
RD. You’ve been telling people the video cameras malfunctioned and broke down during the burglary and you obviously had an IT tech come in at one or one thirty in the morning and repair them because the cameras came back on at 2:05 am and have worked flawlessly ever since. So could I see the invoices?
JP. We don’t have that; we didn’t get anything like that.
RD You didn’t call anyone to come in and fix them? There have been no complaints that I am aware of since the cameras came back on at 2:05 am the following morning. You have no repair invoices?
JD No not that I know of?
RD. So you didn’t call anyone to come in and fix these cameras you claim keep breaking down? You keep telling dealer tenants that it’s the cameras fault because they are unreliable; you used the word unreliable, but yet you didn’t call a repair-person to come fix them?
Just then she became very very angry and raised her fists, turned red, and started shaking violently (seen on video tape), and she yelled, ” I’m getting sick and tired of you two insinuating that my employees had anything to do with these cameras turning off or not working, I KNOW FOR A FACT my employees had nothing to do with those cameras.” “I know that for a fact”.
RD. You know that for a fact? Judy you were not here that day, all day. You were off work that day Judy nowhere near the mall. How would you know that for a fact?
JD. “I know my employees would never mess with those cameras I know for a fact they would never do that”.
RD. Once again Judy you cannot speak from personal knowledge or fact knowledge you were not here.
JP. She looked down on the ground in apparent shame and became very silent for what seemed like an eternity. Just then Chris Sheidler who had been eavesdropping from behind an office door jumped out (see him on videotape) and in trying to cover for her, angrily and upset dropped a bombshell. He messed up even further than she did with his comments.
BINGO.
Analysis. What Judy Phillips is saying here is that Chris Sheidler’s employees are the ones responsible for the burglary? Since she was off Thursday and Friday her regular days off she was not present and could not KNOW FOR A FACT who tampered with the cameras. Therefore she knew before it happened who would be responsible for that. It would be Paul Benavidez and Steve McDonald. Her employee Jim Gaither who knew it was going to happen was there that night but simply provided logistical support like lying and helping to cover up the crimes after the fact.
Timing, day, hour etc is very crucial in investigations as regards the crime itself. If like Mr. Sheidler you are running a theft and burglary operation you use common sense which he normally does from looking at the evidence in planing these staged crimes. A retailer will plan a large heist in this manner.
In order to create as little disruption as possible for his/her customers they plan it around the days with the least customer traffic. In this case it would be non-pay days and non-weekends. That would be about the middle of the month and on Monday or Tuesday. That would be the ideal situation for a retailer….and a burglar as well. That would mean you would not plan this burglary for a weekend and at the beginning of the month as was done in this case. So why did they plan it for a weekend at the beginning of the month? The main reason it was done on Thursday-Friday was because Judy Phillips told them she did not want to deal with the fallout and have to face Bill Cutler the main victim of this crime. So they did it on her days off as a courtesy to her. They are courteous burglars you have to give them that.
By the way even though Judy Phillips is not on videotape that day since she was off, the outside help (friends and family members of Paul Benavidez and Steve McDonald) who help liquidate the silver, gold, jewelry and also did some door smashing to set off burglar alarms……are all over the video tape of August 2, 2012 just before the staged burglary. They are there since at least 4:00pm going in and out constantly to look at the merchandise and selecting what they want to take that evening. It’s on tape.
The above analysis is very significant.
Because the burglary was staged at Mr. Sheidler’s convenience and ongoing planned projects, and it was planned August 2-3 not around customer convenience. First the lawsuit was in full swing and since both parties would refuse to discuss it except by subpoena, we have to assume that based on the available evidence the partners’ relationship had completely broken down. Very soon after the fake door smashing of late July 2012 they had to follow through on the fake burglary, which placed it in early August. The reason for this is because Mr. Sheidler was secretly constructing and building a facility in Arlington, Texas, for a new retail mall. It was highly secretive, not one tenant knew it was an ongoing project and this project required Mr. Sheidler presence and attention……away from the Fort Worth theft and burglary operation.
Therefore to explain his weeklong absences and his wife’s absence from the Fort Worth facility Judy Phillips spread the rumor that Elizabeth Sheidler was at the hospital critically ill, and at one time, I personally heard a tenant say she was near death and Chris was constantly at her bedside. There is no evidence of that, like the lack of paper work for repair of the broken cameras, no invoices or paper work from any medical facility as proof of this near death claim.
In addition it does not make logical, rational or moral sense that you would be launching and working at constructing an antique mall in a nearby city while your spouse is in critical care near death at a hospital. That does not make sense. So this rumor Judy Phillips was spreading is a lie and built to cover and explain Chris Sheidlers secretive lawsuit dealings and highly secretive surreptitious business building enterprise in Arlington Texas. I’m sure that a subpoena of medical records is not going to show the picture Judy was constructing in this situation. But this also goes to show to what lengths Mr. Sheidler’s employees will go to conceal their activity and the record is clear and documented (police reports, 911 audiotape and witnesses) this is not the first time Mr. Sheidler has used his wife as a cover to further his crimes against his tenants.
Interesting. Uncover a lot of things going on inside an antique store. Please continue……. will check the page in a few days…..continue. Thank you.
Page thirty-two of the counterclaim contains a Motion filed by Matt and Beverly Robb.
The Section XV paragraph 117 states;
REQUEST FOR APPOINTMENT OF A RECEIVER FOR SRI (MSAM)
and reads as follows.
In addition, or in the alternative, Counter-Plaintiffs request this Court appoint a receiver to rehabilitate SRI on several statutory and equitable grounds. First, Counter-Defendants are engaging in illegal, oppressive, and fraudulent conduct. TEX. BUS. ORG. CODE & 11.404(a)(1)(C). Second, the governing persons of the entity are deadlocked in the management of the entity’s affairs, the owners of the entity are unable to break the deadlock, and irreparable to the entity is being or is threatened because of the deadlock. Section 11.404(a)(1)(B). Finally, the property of SRI is being misapplied or wasted. Section 11.404(a)(1)(D). The Court should appoint a receiver to conserve the property and business of SRI and to avoid damage to interested parties, including Counter-Plaintiffs. Section 11.404(b). A Court may appoint a receiver for a corporation on the petition of one or more shareholders of the Corporation. TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REMEDIES CODE &64.002. All requirements of law have been complied with and all other available legal and equitable remedies are inadequate.
The above filed on November 02, 2012.
Exactly one week before this was filed with the Court and at about 85 percent of our investigation, I told Bill Cutler, “the evidence does not look good against Chris and his employees: in order to lessen the damage to all the tenants at the very least we’re gonna have to file with the AG under the DTPA to appoint a Receiver, to take over day to day operational control of the facility”.
Who knew that his business partners were simultaneously working on different channel of the same thing, incredible!
Add the word injury to the sentence above.
Second, the governing persons of the entity are deadlocked in the management of the entity’s affairs, the owners of the entity are unable to break the deadlock, and irreparable (injury) to the entity is being or is threatened because of the deadlock. Section 11.404(a)(1)(B). Finally, the property of SRI is being misapplied or wasted.
The Fort Worth Police Department has a huge, huge, massive conflict of interest when it comes to investigating these types of crimes by a business owner. The simple and main reason the burglary team will never be arrested is money. Mr. Sheidler and his burglary team have been supplying a guaranteed steady stream of tax dollars almost directly to the Fort Worth PD so they have no incentive to ever disturb his operation no matter how bad it gets. So the victims are simply living in a fantasy-land if they think this police department is doing anything to recover their property and punish the wrongdoers. We have abundant evidence to show that.
The police are heavily invested in avoiding a just resolution by concealing evidence, fabricating and making up evidence in order to keep that steady stream of money from Chris pouring into their fake CCPD program.
Below is the marketing scheme for what the CCPD markets to the citizens and the victims of these massive burglaries. (But it’s mostly fake…evidence)
Revenue from the ½ cent sales tax serves a role in providing the necessary resources to effectively implement crime reduction strategies pertaining to violent crime, gangs, neighborhood crime, school safety, youth, and police enhancements. These strategies may include deploying officers on an enhanced basis to respond to emerging problems, supporting citizen participation and crime prevention programs, replacing vehicles and other equipment critical to crime control, increasing security at schools, and/or providing an adequate number of officers throughout Fort Worth’s neighborhoods–just to name a few. The CCPD’s approved budget for the 2014 fiscal year is $62,320,362.
http://www.fortworthpd.com/ccpd/ccpd-documents.aspx
Who Manages the CCPD taxing district funds?
The fund is administered by the Fort Worth Police Department, and it is managed by a nine-member Board of Directors that establishes the annual budget and policies, oversees expenditures, and evaluated programs funded by the district. Setting policies, overseeing expenditures and evaluating programs funded by the District.
Below are the people who have a conflict of interest and a vested interest and from the available evidence discourage the FWPD from solving the burglary problem at Mr. Sheidler’s burglary operation.
District #1 – Betsy Price, President
District #2 – Sal Espino, Director
District #3 – Zim Zimmerman, Vice President
District #4 – Danny Scarth, Director
District #5 – Gyna Bivens, Director
District #6 – Jungus Jordan, Director
District #7 – Dennis Shingleton, Director
District #8 – Kelly Allen Gray, Director
District #9 – Joel Burns, Director
On December 06, 2012 the Crime Control Prevention District taxing authority, President and Mayor Betsy Price sent this email.
Mayor Price is aware of the situation at Montgomery Street Antique Mall and she forwarded your email to Rhonda Robertson, Deputy Chief at the police department in order to obtain a report of the efforts of the police department in this case. The case you have highlighted is under the supervision of Captain Linda Stuart, West Division commander, and she will ensure contact with you to discuss the actions that the PD has taken and will continue to take for the successful resolution of the burglary problems at Montgomery Street Antique Mall.
Rhonda Robertson nor Linda Stuart has ever sent a report from the Northwest Division nor contacted any victim of these burglaries; there is no need to, they already know who the burglars are.
On September 21, 2012 Detective Finch said to one victim who lost around 12,000.00 to Mr. Sheidler’s employees, “I’m still working on your case; I’m gonna call you on it real soon”. It’s going to be two years this year, and the reason he has not called is because he knows who is facilitating these burglaries.
In March of 2014, Chief Jeff Halstead indicated in person, we would be receiving a call in TWO WEEKS from Sgt. Matt Welch his personal assistant. It’s been ten weeks.
The Police Department has tilted the tables so they win all around. They get to put a “staged crime they never have to investigate” on their computer system like its work, while conveniently collecting tax revenue from the criminals they’re managing.
This is the most bizarre situation and I suggest that the US DoJ come in with a federal racketeering lawsuit against The Fort Worth Police Department and their CCPD Directors, and their employer the City of Fort Worth and Mr. Sheidler. The reason the DoJ needs to do this is because when you have a PD, teaming up with a city to market a fake taxing program and a criminal conspirator in the business sector teaming together, their innocent victims will lose every time as they have since the burglary team took hold at the antique mall.
By the way if you check other antique malls in the area you will not find such massive burglary police reports because they don’t have the same type of partnership Chris has with the Northwest Division.
Wow. Seems like some type of conspiracy is going on at this Antique Mall. As of today, are there still so many vendors there??? Vendors don’t care if they lose money? Interesting.
You stated the 2nd store is in Arlington?? Expansion? Or the one you were in is about to close????
May have to check out the mall myself someday.
In a nutshell to summarize the Fort Worth Police Department.
We hired a forensics audio-video professional investigator named Barry Dickey with years of experience. In fact Barry Dickey is so well regarded he also did some analysis work on the Osama Bin Laden tapes for new national news networks, and has done hundreds cases for the aggregate judicial system at all levels of government, as well as private investigators and lawyers.
Barry Dickey seemed baffled as to why Detective Finch and his supervisor Sgt. Latham were constantly fabricating evidence, investing considerable resources to shut down the investigation. He said among other things, “what they are doing is almost unheard of in law enforcement circles”.
For instance, Detective Finch with the FWPD confiscated videotape evidence from the military defense contractor just north of the crime scene and ordered their security Chief not to release it to the victims. This military defense contractor took a panoramic view of the entire Montgomery Street Antique Mall complex and captured everything the employees and their co-conspirators did before, during, and after the burglary.
Unbeknownst to past victims (before August 2-3, 2012), most staged burglaries for many years, were captured by the defense contractor.
At that time Barry Dickey, the forensics investigator, did not know that Detective Finch and his supervisors, and the FWPD had a financial stake in the outcome of the results, and that this had been ongoing. He did not realize that if they arrested Mr. Sheidler and his burglary team, the burglars, the FWPD would lose out on considerable tax dollars controlled by them, and illegally being shifted to the FWPD bank accounts. The reason it is illegal is because they have such a conflict of interest that cannot stand judicial scrutiny. Now that everybody knows of this financial stake, it makes perfect sense that the FWPD would be intentionally conducting fake and shoddy investigations, fabricating evidence, lying to the victims and public.
So what we have here is a different chapter of the same playbook of policing for profit by a “law enforcement agency” re-victimizing the victims for money. The private sector (Mr. Sheidler) joining with the FWPD in running and managing an ongoing criminal enterprise. We have additional evidence of that, and their conflict of interest is actionable in State and Federal Court.
One of the reasons the antiques dealers/tenants are so upset with the revelation that Mr. Sheidler and his employee burglary team have been in operation for so long is because they themselves are so heavily invested and wrapped around his web. The entire community was duped, the taxpayer, even the police are heavily invested through the fake CCPD taxing program (to fight crime except Mr. Sheidler’s crimes), the local newspaper was duped into believing this is Antique Mall is an honest business operation.
WFAA television station runs morning programs where some of the tenants Mr. Sheidler’s employees have victimized in the past, and probably will again in the future, are actually standing there marketing what turns out to be his ongoing theft and burglary operation. So I don’t blame them for being upset at these revelations, but as history has proven you can only go so far blaming the victims who blew the whistle. In the final analysis you have to hold the victimizer, and their supporters accountable…….because justice demands that.
Here are the promotional videos to sell the mall to future victims. If anybody needs to know which ones of the tenants in these videos were robbed at the Montgomery Street Antique Mall, just ask.
http://www.montgomerystreetantiques.com/videos
Ray DeRusse received the following information/question from a Michael R. Baldwin from the FWPD and offers his response here.
Mr. Baldwin says in the email:
I wanted to assure you that my staff will look into this matter. To assist me in this investigation, do you have anything specific beyond what we will find in an offense report?
Michael R. Baldwin
Captain
Fort Worth Police Department
West Division
City of Fort Worth — Working together to build a strong community.
_______________________________________________
Here is evidence of document fabrication and fraud by C. Sheidler and Detective Finch working together for a common purpose.
Take a copy of the original police report # 120076247, and a copy of the latest one and set them side by side and we’ll refer to that in a few minutes. You can get a copy here at this link.
http://www.fortworthtexas.gov/applications/PoliceReports/ReportSearch.aspx
Now in early September of 2012, people wondered aloud and the conversation at the mall revolved around why there was NEVER any theft or burglary of Chris Sheidler’s merchandise like precious metals etc?
People asked why would someone break in to a building, smash a glass showcase to steal a box of flatware worth 4-5 hundred dollars but walk past a similar size box with flatware worth 5-8 thousand dollars? What burglar would do that, that makes no sense? It only begins to make sense when you realize who the burglars are, Mr. Sheidler’s managers and their friends who help liquidate the merchandise. (Video on friends and family to be provided on line)
So in response to this conversation and to look like a victim, Mr. Sheidler with the help of Detective R. S. Finch changed the report to indicate he too was burglarized. Neither Mr. Sheidler nor Detective Finch bothered to tell the actual victims he too was burglarized because they knew nobody would believe it. And this is exactly the way the quietly inserted entry reads on the police report.
Involvement……..STN ( stolen )
Article……………..GEMSTO ( I have no idea what that means )
Description………unknown amount of silver ( if you don’t know the amount how do you know the value? )
Value………………$501.00