PORTSMOUTH — A city postal worker who stole a rare baseball card while it was being mailed from a Wisconsin seller to a Maine buyer, was fired, fined, given a suspended jail sentence, ordered to perform community service and to pay restitution to the U.S. Postal Service.
Richard Trofatter Jr., 31, of 1090 Meetinghouse Road, Wells, Maine, pleaded guilty in Portsmouth District Court Tuesday to a class A misdemeanor count of theft of lost or mislaid property. His attorney, James Noucas, told the court his client was recently treated for “obsessive compulsive behavior surrounding baseball cards” and according to a police report, Trofatter described himself as “borderline addicted” to collecting the cards.
The card had been graded and given a serial number before it was put in the mail by an eBay seller in Michigan who insured it for $655, according to court records. When an eBay buyer in Maine reported he never received it, the Postal Service launched an investigation, discovered the card had been sold on eBay for $1,211, then traced it back to mail handler Trofatter, who was working at the 345 Heritage Ave. postal facility, according to Peracchi’s affidavit.
Trofatter first denied ever seeing the card, then admitted his “borderline” addiction and to selling it at a Market Square jewelers, according to police. Meanwhile, the Postal Service reimbursed the Wisconsin seller the $655 insured value.
Prosecutor Corey MacDonald told the court that Trofatter was fired from his job as a result of the charge.
Judge Sawako Gardner described the crime as more than a theft case, because Trofatter committed “a breach of trust” as a mail handler.
“The card was lying in the bottom of a postal bin,” Noucas told the judge who responded that she “can’t imagine” how a $655 baseball card, packaged for mail, would end up that way.
Judge Gardner accepted Trofatter’s guilty plea and imposed a six-month county jail sentence, with all of it suspended pending two years of good behavior. She also imposed a $2,000 fine, with $1,000 suspended pending the same good behavior and ordered payment of $655 restitution to the U.S. Postal Service.
Trofatter was also ordered to perform 30 hours of community service for a Portsmouth nonprofit agency.
MacDonald said he does not know the current whereabouts of the Cracker Jack card.
I know where the card is, it’s probably in the wall of his house or apartment. Someone is going to find it years from now and have a nice valuable card. So folks becareful what you send through the mail. This guy might be your carrier:
I think I might have beat you to it.
Wow GooD article! Does compulsive card collecting have a lot of victims?