TubeNet

For what it's worth:

I was the original winning bidder on that auction. This morning I couldn't remember what shank mouthpiece the Meinls take, so I got onto tubenet, searched it, and came up with the thread about the Meinl euph being stolen from the UNLV student's car in January. Obviously that sent up red flags, so I contacted the seller to let him know I'd be backing out of the deal and contacted the poster whose horn was stolen, whom I haven't heard back from (if anyone knows his contact information please send it to me. I e-mailed him but I notice he's not a regular participant on these forums) I got my money back from the seller, who swears the serial numbers don't match. So, whatever. It could very well be the world's weirdest coincidence, and everything may be fine with the deal, but that wasn't a risk I was going to take.

ufonium2 wrote:For what it's worth:

I was the original winning bidder on that auction. This morning I couldn't remember what shank mouthpiece the Meinls take, so I got onto tubenet, searched it, and came up with the thread about the Meinl euph being stolen from the UNLV student's car in January. Obviously that sent up red flags, so I contacted the seller to let him know I'd be backing out of the deal and contacted the poster whose horn was stolen, whom I haven't heard back from (if anyone knows his contact information please send it to me. I e-mailed him but I notice he's not a regular participant on these forums) I got my money back from the seller, who swears the serial numbers don't match. So, whatever. It could very well be the world's weirdest coincidence, and everything may be fine with the deal, but that wasn't a risk I was going to take.

I think it is Brad Bradley, and I found his MySpace page where I sent him a message.

Here's hoping we get a happy ending out of this...thanks so much for connecting the dots. I'm not a big believer in coincidence, especially one this absolutely unbelievable (is it really reasonable to think that a pawn shop would happen upon the exact same make and model EUPHONIUM just a few weeks after Brad's was stolen, and in the same town?).

UPDATE: Got a message back from Brad Bradley on MySpace...he was the same guy who posted here about getting his axe stolen in January. He said since someone bought it, he didn't have a chance to see if it was his horn. I would think he could tell from the pictures (particular dents and scratches), but perhaps not. Interesting that the serial number wasn't disclosed in the ad, don't you think?

To "ufonium2"...do you know if the pawn shop went ahead and sold it to the second place bidder yet? Surely Brad could simply contact the Las Vegas police to investigate, since it's such an unlikely set of circumstances. Oh well, perhaps I shouldn't worry about it.

I don't know. I sent the original poster an e-mail early yesterday with my contact information and never heard from him. The seller was making threats about reporting me to ebay for nonpayment so he wouldn't have to pay the sellers fees, which I guess he would only do if he weren't planning on selling it to the second place bidder. I shared my concern with ebay (including sending them a link to the tubenet posting) in order to get them to stop payment, so the seller might be reluctant to re-list it through ebay. Anyway, I hope the OP is able to check out this horn in person really soon before it gets sold out of state and it's essentially gone forever.

It's back on ebay. If the owner wanted to, he's got at least six days to investigate now.

"RE-LISTED due to a NON-PAYING high bidder"

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0371868759

This smells really foul...something is not right here. Honestly, how many people in Las Vegas would even have a EUPHONIUM to sell at a pawn shop, and why would they need to sell an instrument in such good condition in that way?

This is almost 100% certainly the stolen horn.

Todd S. Malicoate wrote: This is almost 100% certainly the stolen horn.

The only think I could confidently say I am 100% certain of is that the individual whose horn was stolen is aware of this auction, and is in the best position to act accordingly.

I have my thoughts about what I think the full story might be here (and I suspect my thoughts are the same as what Wade is thinking), but considering that the theft victim is now fully aware of the auction, seems it is between him, the pawnshop, eBay, and local police at this point.

An update:

The original owner contacted me yesterday and left a phone message. It is his horn (to nobody's surprise). I didn't get to talk to him, but in the message he said he was in the process of getting the horn back but was hitting complications. I'm guessing the complications are arising from the pawn shop owner, who was really rude to me throughout the process, making threats and such. I can't imagine how he's behaving now that the owner (and presumably the police) are involved. But, at least the second ebay auction has been pulled. So, looks like this might resolve well. I believe the law is usually that the pawn shop owner has to sell the stolen goods back to the rightful owner for the price of the pawn, so he'll probably get his horn back for $300 or whatever the pawn was.

our principal trombonist found his stolen edwards on ebay a week after it got stolen. Good thing he knew his serial number, and had a police report filed!

schlepporello wrote:

ufonium2 wrote:I believe the law is usually that the pawn shop owner has to sell the stolen goods back to the rightful owner for the price of the pawn, so he'll probably get his horn back for $300 or whatever the pawn was.

I don't know about that. Were I the original owner, I'd be filing charges against the pawn shop owner for posession and sale of stolen goods.

That's a very good point. Wouldn't a law like ufonium2 describes give pawn shop owners carte blanche to steal whatever they want to, create a fake pawn receipt to a fake person (or even a real one, for that matter) and then, if/when caught, get some extra money from the rightful owner and escape prosecution?

I'm no lawyer, but...I don't think so, Tim.

Todd S. Malicoate wrote:

schlepporello wrote:

ufonium2 wrote:I believe the law is usually that the pawn shop owner has to sell the stolen goods back to the rightful owner for the price of the pawn, so he'll probably get his horn back for $300 or whatever the pawn was.

I don't know about that. Were I the original owner, I'd be filing charges against the pawn shop owner for posession and sale of stolen goods.

That's a very good point. Wouldn't a law like ufonium2 describes give pawn shop owners carte blanche to steal whatever they want to, create a fake pawn receipt to a fake person (or even a real one, for that matter) and then, if/when caught, get some extra money from the rightful owner and escape prosecution?

I'm no lawyer, but...I don't think so, Tim.

Sure...if they're okay with comitting theft *and* fraud. Just depends how many years the pawn shop owner wants to spend in jail.

I think Bloke is right. I think that if I buy stolen property, I'm the one who ends up holding the short straw.

"Some states require that the pawn shop give you your item back, unfortunately in most states, the pawn shop will only have to offer the item to you for the same price the item was pawned for. After that you will have to seek restitution for reimbursement through the court system."

from here: http://www.associatedcontent.com/articl ... tml?cat=17" target="_blank

So basically the pawn shop loses no money, and the original victim has to sue the thief for the cost of the pawn. Of course the thief is flat broke in most cases, so I doubt most people get that money back. I know this because the pawn shop owner in this case was going to ship that horn to me against my will (I had paid through paypal before learning it was stolen, and had asked for a refund and been denied) so that it would be out of his hands. Not wanting to go to jail, I read up on what I needed to do in order to avoid being charged with possession of stolen property. Basically the pawn shop is totally off the hook, since they can claim that they had no reason to believe the item was stolen and thus didn't knowingly sell stolen goods. Totally fair, huh?

ufonium2 wrote:"Some states require that the pawn shop give you your item back, unfortunately in most states, the pawn shop will only have to offer the item to you for the same price the item was pawned for. After that you will have to seek restitution for reimbursement through the court system."

from here: http://www.associatedcontent.com/articl ... tml?cat=17" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank


So basically the pawn shop loses no money, and the original victim has to sue the thief for the cost of the pawn. Of course the thief is flat broke in most cases, so I doubt most people get that money back. I know this because the pawn shop owner in this case was going to ship that horn to me against my will (I had paid through paypal before learning it was stolen, and had asked for a refund and been denied) so that it would be out of his hands. Not wanting to go to jail, I read up on what I needed to do in order to avoid being charged with possession of stolen property. Basically the pawn shop is totally off the hook, since they can claim that they had no reason to believe the item was stolen and thus didn't knowingly sell stolen goods. Totally fair, huh?

That is not correct. The owner has the OPTION of buying the property back for the price of the pawn, but repurchase is NOT the only option. In any event, most jurisdictions have mechanisms to allow the owner to recover the repurchase cost.

(BTW, Associated Content is NOT a credible source for information. Their standard for "expertise" is significantly lower than even Wikipedia's: check their About Us page and the "qualifications" of the author of the above linked article, for example.)

In most jurisdictions (municipalities), pawn shops are required to deliver an item to police custody if served a writ of replevin for that item. If the item is determined to have been stolen from the plantiff (the person who obtained the writ of replevin) AND prosecution is confirmed by the owner, the property will be returned to the owner at no cost; in some jurisdictions, if the owner declines to prosecute, the item will be returned to the pawn shop.

Furthermore, most jurisdictions require pawnbrokers to provide records of items taken in pawn to local law enforcement on a daily or weekly basis to check against stolen property reports, and items identified stolen are confiscated by the police and returned to the owner, again at no cost to the owner, upon disposition of the criminal case.
______________________________

Don't take legal advice from a lawyer on the Internet. I'm a lawyer but I'm not your lawyer.

In other words .. if someone steals your junk call the cops and file a report. If you find your junk ... call the cops and have them deal with the people that have it.

Did some checking into Las Vegas and Clark County pawn ordinances.

Both Las Vegas and Clark County require pawn shops to report all transactions to law enforcement on a daily basis, and pawn shops can't dispose of pawned items, except to the pawnor, for a minimum of 30 days after receiving them. Since the pawn unit checks those reports against stolen property reports, it does rather beg the question of why this wasn't flagged as stolen earlier.

Pgym ... who can think of three possible explanations of the top of my head, but considers failure to report receipt of the item by an actual, licensed pawn shop the least likely possibility.
______________________________

Don't take legal advice from a lawyer on the Internet. I'm a lawyer but I'm not your lawyer.


OBTW:

schlepporello wrote:Were I the original owner, I'd be filing charges against the pawn shop owner for posession and sale of stolen goods.

Pawn laws generally shield duly licensed pawn shops from trafficking in stolen property charges if they have adhered to the transaction reporting requirements, on the presumption that it is rarely in a pawnbroker's financial interest to accept stolen goods (if an item is identified as having been stolen, the broker loses both the loan amount and the collateral used to secure the loan), unless there is compelling prima facie evidence that the broker knew or should have known that the goods in question were stolen.

One is, of course, always free to swear out a complaint against a pawn shop, but as an individual, you cannot file criminal charges since, under American law, crimes are committed against the State.

In the absence of compelling evidence of criminal conduct on the part of the broker, however, prosecutors rarely lay charges against pawnbrokers for trafficking in stolen goods.

pgym,

Out of curiosity, what would have happened had I gone through with the transaction and the horn had turned out to be stolen? (as it apparently has, despite the precautions, since the second ebay auction was canceled) Would I be out $2300? I'm in another state, if that makes a difference. To be clear, I would never knowingly own a stolen instrument, even if there were no financial repercussions. But I'm wondering if I hadn't found out until days or weeks later, if I would have lost the purchase price when the horn was returned to the rightful owner, or if the pawn shop would've had to refund my money.

Depends on the applicable statute(s).

Assuming that the horn would be considered to have been sold at retail rather than at auction, most states would require the pawnbroker to return your money since the broker did not possess and could not convey title to the horn, which is a necessary condition for a sale to occur. In that case, the Nevada and Las Vegas statues would apply.

If the transaction is considered to have been sold at auction, it depends on your state's and municipality's law. Most states hold the auctioneer responsible to return the buyer's money, the Ebay User Agreement notwithstanding. In that case, Ebay would be required to reimburse you, though you may need a good lawyer to collect. (No, I'm not soliciting clients.)

pgym
______________________________

Don't take legal advice from a lawyer on the Internet. I'm a lawyer but I'm not your lawyer.

Don't take legal advice from a lawyer on the Internet. I'm a lawyer but I'm not your lawyer.

Nice

I'm interested in the outcome, if anybody knows and can keep us posted.

Nick

Still interested. Does anybody know if the horn went back to its rightful owner?

Nick