Well, they caught up with Chris Gardner

Beat me to it!
https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wcc/christopher-c-gardner

 

Neither link suggests that he is in custody.

 

First one says they arrested him in CH where he lives.

 

Yes, but it seems to imply that he’s under house arrest. And what about the sale of the car to somebody in Illinois? The whole article is kind of a mess.

Maybe Elizabeth Puckett is an intern reporter.

 

So what is the status of the 2015 Illinois buyer?
Out of pocket, I assume, in favor of the original Milwaukee owner?
Any names?

 

The Teardrop has been one of my most favorite cars since I was very young.
So this guy stole it and restored it? Are there pictures of the car from when he took it?

 

It goes on to say that he was arrested in Italy and made a sneaky escape. The FBI admits to not knowing much about his current status. Vague news that raises more questions than it answers.

 

Poorly written article. And how do I send something from the States "by ship bound for Switzerland"? Did geography change a little since 2001? This is apparently a common practice with car thieves. Maybe there is a secret tunnel under France from CH to the Altantic which these mysterious ships full of stolen cars use.

 

Interesting, but very poorly written article, borderline "fluff."

 

The only claim of this thread to "on topic" status is that Christopher Gardner was a principal in the 16-year-old thread, 375+ # 0384. For further details one should click on the link, provided that one has a couple days of free time to spend reviewing a 166-page web forum thread. But with respect to the present thread, it made me curious enough to do a quickie Google search, to see if I could find the actual facts behind the OP's click-bait version.

The most informative thing I found was a copy of a grand jury indictment filed on May 29, 2019 in a Milwaukee, WI, U.S. District Court case entitled U.S. v. Christopher C. Gardner, case no. 19-CR-99.* Like most legal writing, the allegations in this indictment are more ambiguous than they could have been. But here's what I get:*

In 1967 a Milwaukee resident named Roy Leiske bought a 1-of-16 Talbot Lago T150C-SS teardrop coupe, chassis #TL 90108. At this time the car was equipped with engine #17317C. As of March 2001 -- 24 years later -- the car was located at Leiske's Milwaukee workshop, apparently the victim of a long-stalled restoration effort. On March 4, 2001, Christopher and two others burglarized the workshop and absconded with the car (likely a basket case at this point). Leiske reported the theft and the car was duly entered by the MPD into the national stolen vehicle data base.

Leiske passed away in July 2005. He bequeathed the car to his nephew, Richard A. Mueller. Mueller subsequently sold a percentage of his claim to the car to our own Ocean Joe Ford.

On or about October 7, 2005 Christopher apparently appeared before the Stockton, CA police department with a frame stamped 90108 and an engine stamped 17317. This presentation resulted in the SPD issuing a "VIN verification report," apparently establishing a record that Christopher was in the actual possession of whatever assemblies he presented to the SPD.

On October 10, 2005 Christopher appeared before a sergeant of the Milwaukee PD. He represented to the sergeant that he was in the process of buying the car from Mueller, and that he would therefore like the MPD to remove the car from the stolen vehicle data base. In support of this request, on October 23, 2005 Christopher mailed four allegedly fraudulent documents to the sergeant: the Stockton PD VIN verification report; a written statement over Christopher's signature that he had bought the car from Mueller; a forged (but notarized) bill of sale from Mueller to Christopher, dated October 12, 2005; and a forged (but also notarized) certificate of title in Christopher's name, also dated October 12, 2005.

On December 15, 2005 the MPD sergeant wrote a report to verify that the car had been "recovered" and that it was lawfully in Christopher's possession. The car was thereupon removed from the stolen car database.

On September 11, 2006, Christopher shipped the car from Oakland, CA, to Geneva Switzerland. He then treated the car to a 4,700 hour restoration process that was not completed until 2015. 85% of the original car was saved, and the body was returned to its original color. According to the District Court indictment, during the restoration Christopher inexplicably replaced the OE two-carb engine #17317C with a three-carb unit. He also falsely re-stamped the three-car unit as #17317C.

By late spring of 2015, Christopher had attracted a buyer, an Illinois resident named Rick Workman. This transaction included the transmittal to Workman's agent of a May 2015 email stating that Christopher had clear title to the car; an August 2015 email repeating this claim; and another August 2015 email regarding payment for the car. Finally, on September 9, 2015 Christopher caused Workman's agent to wire $6.8 million to Christopher's HSBC Bank account in the UK.**

These four electronic transmittals gave rise to four of the five counts in the 2019 District Court indictment. A fifth count alleges that Christopher shipped the car from Switzerland to Chicago on December 5, 2015, thereby committing an unlawful transportation of a stolen vehicle in foreign commerce.

In 2016, Workman's LLC -- TL90108, LLC -- applied for an Illinois title. This application triggered a stolen vehicle report. Wisconsin confirmed to Illinois that the car had been reported stolen, and Illinois refused to issue a title. (Please note that this part of my narrative, taken by me from the allegations of the Mueller/Ford complaint, do not jibe with the allegations in the 2019 District Court indictment, but the inconsistency is not very important.)

This application also resulted in a heads-up to Mueller and Ford that the car had resurfaced. They made a demand to Workman's LLC to restore possession, which was declined. In February 2017 Mueller and Ford sued the LLC in Wisconsin state court, seeking damages and an order to return the car. This case remains pending; see my footnote below.

Finally, regarding Christopher's present whereabouts: The 2019 District Court indictment apparently gave rise to an international warrant for Christopher's arrest, including an FBI reward of $10,000 "for information leading to the arrest of Christopher Gardner." According to the FBI, "In June 2021, Gardner was arrested in Italy, placed on house arrest, and fled in November 2021. His whereabouts remain unknown."

Final comment: Both the allegations of the Mueller/Ford complaint and the District Court indictment should be taken with a grain of salt. Of course both the Wisconsin state court plaintiffs and the U.S. attorneys in Milwaukee bear the burden of proving the truth of their allegations, by a preponderance of the evidence or beyond a reasonable doubt, respectively. Particularly where Ocean Joe is concerned, we should keep the entire salt shaker nearby. But if these allegations are true, things look really bad for Christopher Gardner.

_______________

* My narrative also incorporates facts alleged in a Wisconsin state court case filed by the nephew and heir of the original owner and by his co-claimant, one Ocean Joe Ford, as recited in a February 2020 Wisconsin Supreme Court opinion, and in a March 2020 story on the site of a Milwaukee law firm

You can also review the docket in OJ's Wisconsin state court case here. It goes on and on and with very little of substance, although it does contain entries regarding an October 2020 letter from Christopher Gardner to the court; a counter-claim for conspiracy to defraud that the defendant filed against OJ in late 2020/early 2021; a stipulated injunction of some kind (probably to prevent the sale or movement of the car pending judgment); and the fact that in December 2021 the parties reported they had settled the case in mediation but that the settlement presently appears to be floundering due to a dispute as to its terms. Sound familiar?

** Apparently Workman has paid a total of $7.6 million for the car, with $800,000 (10.5%) of that total apparently having been disbursed to unidentified persons by means other than the $6.8 million wire transfer of September 2015.

 

Intermodal transportation.

 

Further regarding Christopher Gardner's present whereabouts: On February 23, 2022 Milwaukee TV station WISN reported that Christopher was arrested in Switzerland in December 2021 and that he was then being held by the Swiss authorities pending extradition to the USA. That is all.

 

" arrested in Switzerland in December 2021 ..... pending extradition to the USA"
So where is he now?

"The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine."

wanna bet this is no where's near over?

 

If you believe the WISN story, CG was a guest of the state (Switzerland that is) from December until at least February 23. I know nothing about Swiss law, but two months and counting seems like a lot of time to keep a non-violent offender locked up pending a ruling on an extradition request. Also it is unlikely that CG would take flight from Switzerland, his home base of 20 years more or less, if a Swiss court were to release him pending extradition. In any event the court could require him to post sufficient security to deter such action.

For that matter I have my doubts about the alleged flight from the Italian “house arrest.” As we have learned repeatedly lately, the FBI is not above spinning and/or fabricating narratives that cover their behinds, in preference to sticking with reality. It just doesn’t make sense that a prosperous 68 year old businessman, charged with a one-off property crime from six years ago, would do anything other than go to work to resolve the Milwaukee District Court indictment. We could wish that the WISN reporter had dug into the facts and had got answers to these questions—you know, like contacting CG’s Swiss or Italian attorneys to get CG’s side of the story—but that appears unlikely.

As for the allegations of the Milwaukee indictment, there’s little doubt that the U.S. Attorney’s primary source was Ocean Joe. We can each of us reach our own conclusions regarding the wisdom of relying on OJ for this kind of thing.

No, many teardrops will have to fall before this is over.

 

Let's say you have an American passport and you are arrested in Switzerland. It may easily take up to 2 (two) years thru all Swiss courts from the lowest to the highest one (Federal Court of Justice in Lausanne), until a final decision is made and there is no further appeal possible and you will finally be kicked out of Switzerland towards USA.
Two years of debating, great for the lawyers. No matter what the FBI or the U.S. wants or not.

Marcel Massini

 

I have no doubt that it could take months or years for an unwilling detainee actually to be extradited from Switzerland to the U.S. In Western legal systems delays like this are a feature, not a bug. In our American headlines we recently saw the December 2018 arrest of a Chinese citizen, Meng Wanzhou -- the daughter of the owner of Hua Wei, a $130 billion tech company -- in Canada on an American warrant. The litigation of the American extradition request took almost three years to resolve. And Meng had a leverage that Christopher Gardner is unlikely to enjoy, that her home country the Peoples Republic of China was helpful enough to arrest two Canadian citizens and to make it clear that the two men would remain in custody until Meng was set free.

It was also the case that Meng was released to house arrest in her Vancouver mansion just ten days after her December 2018 arrest. That is my point about Christopher Gardner, that it seems unlikely that the Swiss authorities would keep him behind bars throughout the years-long litigation of an American extradition request. It would be nice if WISC TV, or any of the other media outlets whom Google identifies as having picked up this story, had actually done a little reporting before they published. But an uncurious media is as American today as our own intractable legal system.

 

No matter what he may have done and of course I don't condone any crime, I don't buy that he escaped when he has a well known residence in Switzerland.

When I was working for Bonhams Geneva in 2017 we organized a day June 22 with good clients in conjunction with the then Maserati dealer in Geneva, Fachinetti and Audemars Piguet the fine watch brand.
I was not the one who invited him but he was there as a guest. We had breakfast a the Maserati dealership near the airport, then we went in about eight Ghiblis, Levantes and Quattroporte VI through the Jura mountain passes -fabulous roads where the cars could really be exercised- to Le Brassus, we had lunch, during which I did a speech on the era of Maserati covered by my book and he was one of the ones paying a compliment afterwards. then we visited the Audemars Piguet watch manufacture, an amazing universe of craftsmanship, tried on some of the watches -locked in a showroom!-, drove back to the Maserati dealership and finished with a reception there. The President of Maserati Switzerland was there too.
CG was there so not hiding at all.
He can be seen in the first photo first seated from right, next to his lady, his French friend who raced F2 decades ago, yours truly and Andrea Bodmer form the Zurich office, then in the second photo next to the white Levante. I have seen people avoiding cameras before but he wasn't at all.
I wish I could have kept the watch

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CG did never hide in Switzerland.
He runs/ran this Swiss registered company, founded 2008:

https://www.moneyhouse.ch/de/company/thoroughbred-engineering-sa-4286274131

Marcel Massini

 

Yes and I found the link for this bilingual French English article in this "Art en Suisse" online magazine I had read back then. See page 26 to 39 about his restoration work, he has vineyards too apparently.

https://issuu.com/artensuisse/docs/art_en_suisse_1_2015/27

 

This affair was featured in Esquire magazine a few years ago... Interesting read for anyone that has the time - https://classic.esquire.com/article/2019/9/1/the-case-of-the-missing-7-million-car

 

A potentially interesting factoid in this matter: According to the Milwaukee County Circuit Court's online records in the Estate of Roy R. Leiske, although Leiske died in July 2005, his sole heir Richard Allen Mueller did not open a probate case until July 2020. This suggests that Mueller simply took possession of Leiske's property upon his death in 2005 and was treating it as his own for 15 years without official legal title. I wonder if this emerged as a problem in his ongoing litigation adventure with Ocean Joe, filed in 2017, and that this is what prompted the 2020 filing of a petition for probate.

 

FBI Most Wanted poster now claims he is Captured. Assume this means he is being extradited from Switzerland to the US?

https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wcc/christopher-c-gardner

 

See post #17.
BTW, interesting first post of yours......
You may want to introduce yourself......

Marcel Massini