The Boston Herald has reported on an underground market that I had no idea existed - the sale of original signatures of major league baseball players obtained from stolen documents that were filed as public court records. Among those missing from the court house and offered for sale online on autograph auction websites: (1) An executor's bond signed in the 1870s by George Wright, a player with the Red Stockings, a precursor of the Boston Braves, which was stolen from the Suffolk County, Massachusetts probate court in the 1990s and was recently listed for sale for $6,500; (2) the Last Will and Testament of George Herman "the Babe" Ruth, signed by the Babe in 1948, which was stolen from a Manhattan, New York probate court nine years ago and recently listed for sale for $95,000; and (3) a mortgage document signed by the Babe for a house he owned in Sudbury, Massachusetts in the 1920s and stolen from the Middlesex County Probate Court.
Boston Detective Steven Blair is currently negotiating the return of the Wright document to the Suffolk County probate court. According to Blair, "If (the collector) doesn't agree to give it back, we'll pursue it criminally." And in response to the thefts, Suffolk County Register of Probate Richard Iannella has "implemented strict new security protocols" by keeping celebrity probate records in a private vault.
Just another reason to create and fund a Revocable Living Trust - it keeps the personal and financial details of your life out of court and out of the public eye.
- Dave Wedge for The Boston Herald - Cops, FBI work to Wright a baseball wrong
- Read the contents of Babe Ruth's Last Will and Testament
- What Are the Benefits of a Revocable Living Trust?
- Pros and Cons of Revocable Living Trusts
- Revocable Trust Myths
- Estate Planning and Privacy - A Lesson From Tony Soprano