Austintown man convicted in sports memorabilia fraud ring at center of locally produced podcast
AUSTINTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – "Operation Stolen Base." It's the name police gave what would become the largest sports memorabilia fraud ring in eBay history — and now it's the name of a podcast produced by a local man.
"Unfortunately, I don't remember playing with him very much, but yeah," said podcast producer Johnny Chechitelli, of Austintown.
Champ Park is where Chechitelli first met Cliff Panezich, also of Austintown, though Chechitelli doesn't remember it.
"During the production, we found a picture of the Little League All-Stars and we were on the same team. We were on the same All-Star team back in, like, 1997," he said.
Panezich would go on to be atop the police chart of a sports memorabilia fraud ring called Operation Stolen Base and Chechitelli would start the Youngstown-based Amazing Podcast Company that has now produced the story.
"The true story behind one of the largest sports memorabilia fraud schemes of all time," Chechitelli said.
Chechitelli conducted all the interviews, including those with Panezich, where he laid out how it all went down.
"Oh, you name it. Mike Trout, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, all that stuff. You name it, he was doing. I think he said the only one he didn't want to do was Derrick Jeter because that was kind of his hero," Chechitelli said.
For seven months in late 2016 and early 2017, First News covered Cliff Panezich's court proceedings, where a picture of what was confiscated was shown and it was disclosed that his mother was also involved. Former prosecutor Marty Desmond handled the case .
"We started this — gosh — close to four years ago. The officers, the agents on the case, they've been working almost nonstop for that time on this case," Desmond said at the time.
"Chasin'" by The Vindys is the podcast's theme song, which Chechitelli called appropriate because Panezich was chased all the way to prison, where he served over five years .
"They made millions and in court, they were able to show, I think, $1.6 million but the prosecutor told me it was more than that, that they weren't able to get the paper trail on. They said several million dollars," Chechitelli said.
There will be eight episodes of Operation Stolen Base. The first three are out and the fourth will drop Friday, with the rest coming over the next four Fridays. They're free to listen to and can be found wherever you get your podcasts.
