John Rogers holds a valuable 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card after its 2008 purchase. |
Two lawsuits against North Little Rock memorabilia dealer John Rogers add more than $2.6 million to claims that now top $18 million as questions about his business dealings continue to mount.
First Arkansas Bank & Trust of Jacksonville is pushing Rogers’ Sports Cards Plus Inc., Planet Giant LLC, Digital Stock Planet LLC and Photo Archives Partners LLC toward court-appointed receivership.
“No comment, no comment, no comment,” said Michael McAfee, the bank’s nominee for receiver.
First Arkansas revamped its $14.2 million claim up to $14.8 million on a series of now-delinquent loans to Rogers and his photo archives and sports memorabilia ventures.
In addition to the growing roster of civil litigation is the possibility of criminal charges related to a federal probe into his business dealings. Rogers already has been identified as making false statements to federal agents as part of a sweeping investigation into sports memorabilia fraud around the nation.
Allegations of fraud were leveled against Rogers in a complaint filed in San Francisco County Superior Court by Mark Roberts, a former investor with Rogers.
Roberts accuses Rogers of fraud in connection with the purchase of historic baseball photographs totaling nearly $2.6 million.
According to the complaint, the FBI tested a sample of 50 photographs presented and priced by Rogers as original, authentic and vintage. Laboratory analysis indicated that every single one of the sample photos was problematic in terms of authenticity.
The 0-for-50 batting performance didn’t extend to all the items purchased by Roberts for his National Pastime Museum, a website for displaying his collection of baseball memorabilia.
“That led to further work,” said Robert Ted Parker, Roberts’ attorney in the California lawsuit. “Some were genuine, and some aren’t.”
Roberts acquired hundreds of photos as part of 24 transactions with Rogers between March 2006 and August 2010. The average price of some batches went as high as $5,333 per photo, according to the complaint.
The second Californian, David Hoffman of Santa Cruz, is seeking $80,000, the balance owed on the $325,000 sale of his namesake video and photograph archive in May 2012.
His complaint filed Nov. 21 in Pulaski County Circuit Court lays claim to the Rickerby Collection of photos and negatives of President John F. Kennedy taken by Arthur Rickerby.
Hoffman alleges that Rogers pledged the Rickerby Collection as collateral on the debt owed to buy Hoffman’s archive, which included his interest in “How Hitler Lost the War,” “Earl Scruggs: His Family and Friends,” “Sing Sing Thanksgiving” featuring B.B. King, “Making Sense of the Sixties” PBS series interviews, and thousands of digitized snapshots of 19th century advertisements and other historic images.
In July, Mary Brace of Chicago sued Rogers and his Sports Card Plus to collect $765,000 owed on his purchase of the famed George Burke & George Brace Collection of photographic negatives.
The epic collection consisted of an estimated 250,000 original negatives. The images contained in the cache include more than 10,000 National and American League players, ranging from superstars to virtual unknowns, who played at Chicago’s Wrigley Field or Comiskey Park between 1929 and 1994.
According to the Pulaski County Circuit case, Rogers failed to make a scheduled payment of $85,000 in April and also failed to provide her a digital copy of the collection per the $1.35 million sales contract.
Questionable Assets
Stories about controversial business dealings involving John Rogers have flowed more freely ever since the FBI visited his business and his gated North Little Rock home. In his fast-moving, wheeler-dealer world, assets he didn’t own sometimes got pledged as collateral.
An Aug. 1, 2011, Uniform Commercial Code filing with the Arkansas Secretary of State indicates that Rogers used the photo archives of The Daily Oklahoman as security for a private debt.
The problem is: Rogers never owned it. But Mac Hogan thought Rogers did and filed a security claim on the archives.
Hogan, owner and chairman of two Jacksonville ventures, Poloplaz Inc. and Air-Tech Coatings Inc., made the filing to stake a legal claim on the asset that helped secure a loan of unspecified value.
Rogers and Hogan declined to comment about the incident.
“I can’t see the benefit of me talking candidly with you about this,” Hogan said. “I can’t see any upside for me.”
Hogan is among a group of private investors who helped bankroll Rogers and his business ventures.
Hogan and North Little Rock chiropractor Christopher Cathey also signed personal guarantees on First Arkansas Bank & Trust debt, but the bank hasn’t pursued legal action against them.
Stories of Rogers delivering fantastic short-term profits and repayment on six- and seven-digit loans from individuals have grown along with his profile during the past 10 years.
Hogan’s financial backing helped support Rogers Photo Archive amassing its collection of newspaper photos that included The Boston Herald, Chicago Daily News, Denver Post, Detroit Journal, Detroit News, Detroit Times, Detroit Tribune, Oakland Tribune, St. Petersburg Times, Seattle Times and Sporting News.
However, The Daily Oklahoman (renamed The Oklahoman in October 2003) wasn’t among his purchases, UCC filing to the contrary.
“We have had many offers to sell but turned them down,” said Dan Barth, chief information officer for OPUBCO Communications Group, which owns the statewide newspaper published in Oklahoma City. “We felt like it was better to own and preserve the photos ourselves.”
The Friends of the Oklahoma History Center, a division of the Oklahoma Historical Society, is helping digitize and archive 1.4 million photographs from the newspaper.
The Oklahoman retains the copyright to the photos.
Hogan’s security interest with Rogers was changed in 2013 to encompass the photo archives of the Seattle Times, Oakland Tribune, four Detroit papers and other unspecified collections. All mention of The Daily Oklahoman vanished.
Sources familiar with the phantom Oklahoman deal report that Rogers later said he traded the photo archive as part of another deal to explain its absence from the roster of assets.
Rogers reportedly continues to travel here and yon working on new deals in the midst of his mounting legal disputes with lenders and individual creditors and his recent divorce.
His ex-wife, Angelica Rogers, is working with John Conner Jr. of Newport on photo archives investments overseen through a Jackson County operation.
Among the financial chaos that began hitting the public record this year are unpaid property taxes of $75,721. The debt is connected with six North Little Rock properties that were jointly owned by John and Angelica Rogers until the Oct. 15 divorce decree ended their 18-year marriage.
Under the property settlement, she became the owner of five commercial projects and their 12,400-SF monster house in the Park Hill neighborhood. She and their three children still live at the 5.5-acre spread, listed for sale at $2.5 million.
Angelica Rogers also received his ownership in Sports Cards Plus and Photo Archives LLC, which is a different entity from Photo Archives Partners LLC).
On paper, the division of assets appears tilted heavily toward her. He essentially took on all the pre-divorce corporate debt.
In an interview published Sept. 28 in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, John Rogers placed the value of the businesses at $300 million.
A source familiar with Sports Cards Plus and Photo Archives portrayed his valuation as astronomically out of touch with financial reality.
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