Box Office Personnel Charged with Aiding Scalpers

Yankees, Mets ticket agents among those indicted

New York, July 25, 2000 -- One of the hottest and most coveted tickets to come by in the Big Apple were the two interleague series played between the Mets and Yankees on the weekends of June 9th and July 7th. Not surprisingly, the tickets were premium goods for scalpers, who were in full gear and eager to go to work. That's not news. What is is where the scalpers received the tickets.

The Associated Press reported that a grand jury indicted 16 individuals on charges that they were involved in helping scalpers get thousands of dollars worth of tickets to these games. They indictments allege that eight Yankee ticket agents and one 1 Mets ticket agent accepted bribes to divert home game tickets to scalpers who sold them to the fans at exorbitant prices. As Manhattan district attorney Robert Morgenthau stated "ordinary fans showing up at the stadium had virtually no chance to obtain the best tickets available to these games, since corrupt agents were diverting them to scalpers."

Furthermore, he claimed that close to $300,000 worth of face value tickets ended up with scalpers. N.Y. State Attorney General Elliot Spitzer, whose office ran a similar investigation, claimed as well, that there was an unholy alliance formed between the agents and scalpers that unfortunately hurt we the fans in the long run.

Amongst the leading defendants in this suit included, Frank Greenwald, President of the Tickets Agents Union Local F-72 as well as his brother Richard, an officer of that particular Union.The charges ranged from grand larceny to schemes involving fraud and bribery.

Brad Berfas