Evidence is Being Leaked Out of the E-Lie Manning MemorabiliaGate Case and It's Bad for the Giants
There have been no developments in the E-Lie Manning MemorabiliaGate Scandal ever since the Giants lawyered up in April and the trial was delayed. Until today.
Just as a refresher, the Giants organization has long had a business relationship with a dealer from New Jersey named Eric Inselberg. The Giants themselves called him their team “memorabilia curator,” like he was running the MoMA or something. He was around the facility all the time. And donated as much as a million bucks of his own collection to the Giant’s museum.
That is, until Inselberg realized they were selling him useless merchandise right out of the box and pawning it off as “game worn” at a huge mark up. For instance, a Manning helmet from his rookie year that doesn’t have the “RB” memorial sticker they wore for Roosevelt Brown, a Manning Super Bowl XLII helmet that the Hall of Fame is no longer claiming is authentic and a Michael Strahan Super Bowl XLII jersey, even though the real one is framed in Strahan’s house. The US Attorney’s came after Inselberg for fraud, until he produced evidence the Giants’ equipment guys were giving him worthless shit and telling him it was valuable. So they dropped the charges. And he sued the team.
The court proceedings produced an email from Manning to Giants equipment guys Joe and Ed Skiba where he specifically asked for ‘2 helmets that can pass as game used.” Even more damaging is evidence that the Skibas lied to the face of the FBI agent looking into it. They swore they’d never given anything to Inselberg. From today’s Washington Post:
For his FBI interview, Ed Skiba was joined by Giants general counsel Bill Heller.
The FBI agent then asked Ed Skiba about some evidence he’d come across: signed checks — from Inselberg, cashed by Skiba — with the words “Footballs, Giants jerseys and Tiki” in the memo line.
At that point, Heller interrupted and asked Skiba to leave the room, according to the FBI agent’s notes. Heller was suddenly in an ethical dilemma, he said, because he represented the team, not Skiba, who might need his own lawyer. They would need to reschedule. …
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After learning his equipment staff had been selling team property for side income for years, and then lied to an FBI agent about it, [owner John] Mara didn’t fire the men. Instead, the Giants put Joe and Ed Skiba on probation and froze their pay for three years.
“The Giants organization chose to internally handle this personnel matter,” said Kessler, the team law firm spokeswoman.
And this text exchange:
“I hate it here,” Joe texted. “Guys who mow the lawn make more.”
“Are (sic) raises are because they are paying our legal fees,” Ed texted. “Funny 3 years probation and now it’s more.”
Joe Skiba replied that he was considering approaching Giants management to demand overtime, “Cause my insights on the case cost money now.”
Later in the exchange, Ed Skiba told his brother, “Not even worth it.”
“For me it is,” Joe Skiba replied. “I’ll tell the whole f—— world the truth.”
Not to make everything be about the Patriots, but ultimately everything is about the Patriots. Because this is all sounding very familiar. A team accused of wrongdoing. Two low level staff droids doing something dirty. The team knows about it and tells one of them to stop cooperating when the investigation puts the heat on him. The owner protects them, but keeps them around to keep them quiet. Texts between C3PO and R2D2 where they talk gripe about the way they’re being treated and threaten to go public. It’s 2014 all over again.
One major difference is that no one ever accused Mr. Kraft of paying off Jim McNally and John Jastremski by taking care of their legal bills. If that’s not a conflict of interest, then interest has never been in conflict. And the main difference is the world isn’t freaking the fuck out that one of the signature franchises in the NFL has basically been running a criminal enterprise that could be indicted under RICO. Employees committing crimes and lying to the FBI but the owner keeps them on the payroll and pays their lawyers. Nobody even knows who the Skiba brothers are, even though two years ago the whole country was obsessing over The Deflator and Dorito Dink. They texted about Brady giving them some signed merch and “going to ESPN” and it was the smoking gun that proved a massive coverup that would tear down an empire. These two say virtually the same thing and … crickets.
The Patriots got severely punished over a couple of texts between two slappies, but the NFL hasn’t said word one about this. No investigator. It’s barely being discussed. Let’s hear it for the Mara family and all they’ve done for our great game. It would be funny if it wasn’t so blatantly hypocritical.