Nearly six months after the Montgomery County District Attorney in Pennsylvania charged three people with 60 felony counts relating to forged Jason Kelce-autographed memorabilia, the DA's office says new evidence showed two of the defendants, Joseph Parenti and Leann Branco, were not part of the scheme as initially alleged.
The DA's office filed motions June 2 with the Court of Common Pleas in Montgomery County to withdraw the charges against Branco and Parenti.
According to the motions, around the time of the arrest of the third defendant, Robert Capone, in January, detectives obtained additional information, including cell-phone evidence, that showed neither Branco nor Parenti were co-conspirators in the scheme.
“We always continue investigating after arrest, and in this case, new evidence showed that Joseph Parenti and Leann Branco were not part of and had no knowledge of Robert Capone’s fraud scheme regarding the forged Jason Kelce memorabilia,” a spokesperson for the DA's office told cllct.
Originally, when the three were first charged for their alleged involvement in the scheme, it was believed Capone conspired with Parenti and Branco to forge more than 1,100 pieces of memorabilia featuring Kelce’s fake signatures, and later knowingly sold by Capone’s Overtime Promotions and Parenti’s Diamond Legends. Branco, said to be an independent contractor for Beckett Authentication, was alleged to have falsely verified the items.
The charges came after Beckett filed a lawsuit against Branco and Parenti. Beckett did not immediately respond to cllct’s request for comment on the dropped charges.
In a statement to cllct, a spokesperson for Parenti quoted an email sent to customers from Parenti saying, in part: “I am pleased to share the legal charges filed earlier this year related to an autograph signing event in Montgomery against myself and Diamond Legends have been officially withdrawn, and we have been cleared of any wrongdoing.”
The spokesperson went on to say: “When Mr. Parenti became aware that there may be issues with the authenticity of the memorabilia in question, he pulled it from the marketplace. Mr. Parenti deeply regrets entering into a business arrangement with Overtime Promotions based in Philadelphia.”
In January, Beckett said it planned to pay back all impacted customers, which it said would amount to roughly $250,000.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct, the premier company for collectible culture.