A 19 Year Old Patriots Fan Cracked the Case of the Missing Brady Jersey
BOSTON (CBS) – When Tom Brady unveiled his recovered Super Bowl jersey during opening day ceremonies at Fenway Park Monday, no one was happier than 19-year-old Dylan Wagner.
He is a sports memorabilia collector and avid Patriots fan who helped federal investigators recover both of Brady’s missing jerseys.
Wagner says it all started shortly after this year’s Super Bowl when news surfaced that Brady’s jersey from the Super Bowl victory against Seattle in 2015 had also been swiped.
“I knew exactly who had it,” Wagner said. …
Last December after selling Martin Mauricio Ortega a jersey on eBay, the two exchanged photos of their collections. “He sent me 30 photos of his collection. Front and center was Tom Brady’s Super Bowl 49 Jersey. I asked him outright, ‘How did you get that?’ and he says ‘I’ll tell you later,’” Wagner explained.
At that time, there were no reports that the Super Bowl 49 jersey was stolen property. So Dylan shared Ortega’s photos with his friend, Boston ATF Special Agent Christopher Arone, who is also a collector. …
Without the photos I sent him they wouldn’t have been able to get a search warrant to go into Ortega’s basement and get the jerseys,” Wagner said.
Sometimes the greatest discoveries are by the most unlikely young people. A couple of Bedouin shepherd boys stumbled upon the Dead Sea Scrolls in a cave. Kids under the age of 12 have found supernovae that astronomers missed and dug up dinosaur bones. I think in Season 3 Doogie Howser once cured Leukemia. And let’s not get started on the Scooby Gang, the Goonies and Encyclopedia Brown.
So it should surprise no one that the biggest mystery of our times was solved by a 19-year-old Patriots fan who spends all his free time on memorabilia sites. And that he cracked a case in a matter of minutes that had a multi-million dollar outfit like NFL Security stymied for two years.
Which speaks volumes for the incompetence of Roger Goodell’s little Secret Service. Because clearly the Mexican Bandit Martin Mauricio Ortega was one of those cliched criminals they always say wanted to get caught. I mean, here we’ve got this little sticky-fingered smuggling bastard flaunting his stolen merch all over the Internet. But did anyone from the league – you know, the people who knew Brady’s XLIX jersey and Von Miller’s Super Bowl 50 helmet and cleats were missing – think to look there? No. They were too busy looking under the sofa cushions and behind the TV and issuing press passes to the guy who was out there flaunting his crimes like a Batman villain.
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Thank God then America has sharp-eyed, Patriots fans like my man Dylan Wagner here. It goes to show that not every memorabilia collector is a socially isolated weirdo with disproportionate amounts disposable income. Some are heroes. And this has to be the best outcome ever involving a middle aged guy sending pictures to a 19-year-old kid on the Internet.