Posted on 05/22/2019 12:19:45 PM PDT by LibWhacker
Federal prison is getting another enophile.
The owner of Safe Harbour Wine Storage in the Baltimore suburb of Glen Burnie pled guilty in federal court on Tuesday to selling his customers' wine and pocketing the money, and is expected to serve 18 months in federal prison.
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William "Billy" Holder, 54, was originally charged with five counts of wire fraud and five counts of interstate transportation of stolen goods. He reached a plea agreement for one wire fraud count, admitting that he faxed a purchase agreement in June 2017 to sell 216 bottles of wine to a broker in Napa for $11,800.
This was a fraction of the amount of wine Holder admitted stealing. The indictment claimed Holder stole $2.3 million worth of wine; in the plea agreement, that figure is crossed out and Holder agreed that "Safe Harbour customers lost between $550,000 and $1.5 million worth of wine". The numbers are written in pen on a typewritten agreement. Holder has agreed to pay restitution of that amount.
A Washington DC man, Todd Laubach, wrote on the Internet bulletin board Wine Berserkers that he lost 759 bottles of wine.
"He completely wiped us out," Laubach wrote. "He replaced some of the cases with cheap bottles of wine. My brother and I foolishly did not have insurance so a total loss. This is what Bill stole from us. We have been on the Rhys list since the beginning. He wiped us out of all of our Rhys from 2006 – 2013, All Bordeaux from 2003-2005, a lot of Pegau and Clos Des Papes, Barolo, Karl Lawrence, Outpost. Unfortunately, we have young families and are not in the position to replace the wine. We are officially out of the wine collecting business."
Holder's scheme does not seem particularly sophisticated, unlike the futures Ponzi scheme that landed John Fox, former owner of Premier Cru wine shop in Berkeley, in federal prison until April, 2021. According to the indictment, Holder simply sold wine that customers had stored with him.
"Holder represented to potential third-party buyers that he was the lawful owner of the wine that he was offering to sell," reads a press release from the Maryland US Attorney's Office. "By e-mail and facsimile, he sent them lists of bottles of wine stored in his warehouse with detailed descriptions of the winery, vintage, and asking price. After the buyers selected the bottles they wanted to purchase, Holder boxed and shipped the wine, and sent his bank account information. After inspecting the shipment of wine, the buyers would either wire the money directly into Holder’s bank account or send a check. Holder kept the proceeds from the sales and spent it on personal expenses."
The wine broker in Napa bought four batches of wine for about $90,000, according to the indictment, while a wine retailer in Washington DC bought 92 bottles for $15,000. Because the numbers don't add up, it's possible that the FBI is still investigating the case. The US Attorney's Office would not comment on the case.
Laubach also wrote on Wine Berserkers: "The maddening thing is that there is a very prominent store in DC that admitted to me and my brother that he had bought our wines from Mr Holder. His resolution was to sell them back to us at his cost. While I understand the owners position, he admitted he was in possession of wine he knew was stolen. The admirable thing to have done would have been to give them back to us."
The location of the store is interesting. The cynically named Safe Harbour – now closed – was in Glen Burnie on the south side of Baltimore, about a 45-minute drive from Monkton, Maryland, home of Robert Parker. There aren't many wine storage facilities in the Baltimore area, but it is not known if Parker stores any wine off-site.
The plea agreement is not set in stone, as it can be accepted or rejected by presiding US District Judge Catherine C. Blake. She has scheduled sentencing for July 31; Holder is expected to remain out of custody until then.
I remember on one of those real crime TV shows a guy was putting fake labels on inexpensive bottles. Maybe fake bottles too, not sure.
The surprising thing is no one noticed for a long time. Finally some guy did.
No photo of William “Billy” Holder, just a generic picture of bottles of wine in a rack. Hmm. Anne Arundel county.
We will steal no wine
Before its time
You don’t get to keep stolen goods. Even if you purchased them in good faith. Ask any Pawn Store owner. Is there more to this story?
######
“Laubach also wrote on Wine Berserkers: “The maddening thing is that there is a very prominent store in DC that admitted to me and my brother that he had bought our wines from Mr Holder. His resolution was to sell them back to us at his cost.”
Lived in Glen Burnie back in ‘81................Moved to Florida and never looked back.................
Any kin to Eric ‘The Red’ Holder?..................
Mmmm… Baltimore wines...
If you don’t hold it, you don’t own it.
"Would you like to sniff the bottle cap?"
Oh phleese.
Trusting stranger with your booze?
Jail his customers for being a-holes.
And sterilize them, to protect the innocent.
rich people problems....
My nephew collects art, his dad (my brother) was an artist, so one day I’m over at his place and he says “hey I got a new acquisition you need to see it” and it was a Jackson Pollock, actually it was a 24-inch square piece of a Jackson Pollock.
How would you know it was really a Jackson Pollock? I didn’t say anything but... I think he might have been ripped off.
It was a piece of used drop cloth.................
If you’re involved in collecting wine and you just can’t seem to find a place to store it, don’t let others take your wine into their own hands....You store it yourself!!!!!
That's because he's probably directly related to Eric Holder and is therefore “A Holder's Person!” All “Holder's People" have a special “immunity” from having their pictures posted publicly because of the past “inequities of being slaves.”
I saw that....the guy was very clever.....made the labels look old. He even cheated one of the Koch brothers who collected wine.
Another wine storage story in California was equally as sad. This guy became a legend.....known as a bon vivant....ate numerous times at a high end sushi resturant with his illicit profits. He put a estaurant out of business by selling their wines.
In another case, he replaced vintage wines with bottles of two-buck Chuck.
When he was found out, he set fire to the storage facility....rivers of fine wines came pouring out.
Possession of Stolen Property Section 7-104(c)
Under Section 7-104(c)(1) it is illegal for a person to
(1) knowingly, or believing property has likely been stolen,
(2) be in possession of stolen property
(3) when the individual:
• Intentionally or knowingly conceals, uses, or abandons the property in such a way that the property owner is deprived of the property, or
• Acts with the intent to deprive the owner of the property, or
• Conceals, uses, or abandons the property in a manner that the individual knows will likely deprive the owner of the property.
“twist and sniff”
In most cases, no pun intended, I suspect he’d be offered a deal to return the wine in exchange for no prosecution on the stolen property charge. If he has paper showing he bot from the guy who stole the wine, it’s stolen property whether he knows it or not, and is subject to confiscation. But now that he knows it’s stolen...he had better come clean as they say in the old Cagney movies. He’s out the money he spent on buying it; that’s probably the best outcome; maybe he can recover some insurance money. He’s damn lucky he didn’t buy interstate, he could find himself among some very non-understanding authorities.
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