Key Trump booster has a history as a con man: Stan Fitzgerald, founder of Veterans for America First, admitted role in selling $2million of fake autographs in one of the biggest sports memorabilia scams in history

Veterans for Trump chief Stan Fitzgerald is a frequent visitor to Mar-a-Lago. He claims to have met with the former president 12 times, and his social media feeds are filled with pictures of the two men grinning together.

His group's support is coveted by MAGA candidates for Congress, and his website's endorsements page is a who's who of Trump world: Marjorie Taylor Greene, Byron Donalds, Kari Lake and Lauren Boebert are all among the photos posted there.

But Fitzgerald has a secret history. For five years he ran Stan's Sports Memorabilia, one of the biggest names in the business, until it was shut down in a 1999 FBI raid for selling more than two million dollars of baseball bats, balls and photographs carrying faked autographs.

Fitzgerald, his wife and his mother were even accused of ordering up forgeries of  athletes when they died, such as baseball star Mickey Mantle, knowing the value would rocket.

He was eventually sentenced to eight months in prison after striking a deal with prosecutors.

Stan Fitzgerald and his wife Donna are frequent visitors to Mar-a-Lago, but they have a dark secret. They both pleaded guilty to fraud charges in relation to a fake memorabilia network

A 2003 indictment sets out the charges against them, that they 'did knowingly combine, conspire and agree together and with others to devise a scheme and artifice to defraud and to obtain money by means of false and fraudulent pretenses' as part of the scam

The  case has resurfaced as part of a bitter dispute between Fitzgerald and another Republican activist, Angie Wong, after they fell out about the running of a network of political action committee and lobbying companies.

She told DailyMail.com Fitzgerald hid his criminal past and was less than honest about the way he was running the group, and made a formal complaint to regulators that he set up look-alike for-profit groups designed to fraudulently attract donations. He in turn is suing her for defamation after she went public with her claims.

'The long of the short is this, I fell into a network of scammers,' said Wong. 

She laid out her allegations in a complaint to the Federal Election Commission, which is among documents submitted to a Georgia court as part of their duelling cases.

'Stan Fitzgerald, Donna Fitzgerald, Jared Craig and other others are also accused of defrauding donors with another political organization named Veterans for America First/Veterans for Trump,' it says.

It accuses Fitzgerald and his allies of using a non-profit group to route donations to companies they controlled.

'It is alleged they were selling services through L Strategies, a Georgia based LLC to create fake Veterans organizations to solicit charitable donations across at least six states including VA, FL, GA, CT, TX or others,' runs the complaint.

Fitzgerald frequently posts images posing with leading MAGA world figures. He is seen here with Rep. Jim Jordan

The indictment sets out the results of the FBI investigation into a forgery network 

To make things even more confusing, Fitzgerald's Veterans for Trump group also uses the name Veterans for America First, to distinguish itself from an official Veterans for Trump coalition that has the stamp of approval from the former president himself. 

Wong also accused her former associates of racism, saying they used her Chinese-American heritage to accuse her of working for the Chinese Communist Party. 

Fitzgerald and his Legacy PAC hit back seeking $50,000 in damages for what he says are defamatory statements made by Wong after she went public with her allegations. And he in turn accuses her of misconduct, retaining control of their website to vent against him.

'Wong's malicious withholding of the Legacy PAC website, social media and fundraising portals have caused Legacy PAC to lose potential donors and continues to prevent it from operating properly,' it says.

'Wong is intentionally making false statements concerning Legacy PAC and its members on a site that she purports to be the official Legacy PAC website.' 

He has kept up a steady stream of press releases setting out his case against her. And he has even proclaimed his innocence in the 20-year-old fake autographs scam, claiming he was coerced into pleading guilty.

The Fitzgeralds are seen here with Arizona Republican candidate for Senate Kari Lake

Fitzgerald's Facebook feed is a who's who of Trump world. Here he is pictured in the Mar-a-Lago ballroom with Trump lawyer Alina Habba

Google searches reveal little of his past life as a fraudster. And even the Wikipedia page related to the FBI investigation into his crimes lists a 'Steve Fitsgerald' [sic] as 'a well known distributor of memorabilia on the East Coast.'

But court documents describe how Fitzgerald, his wife Donna and mother Josephine pleaded guilty to felony charges stemming from a huge conspiracy to sell forged sports memorabilia.

FBI investigators with Operation Bullpen shut down their business and more than 50 others with a series of raids in 1999 that spanned the country from California to New Jersey - one of the biggest multi-site raids in the law enforcement agency's history.

'The FBI and IRS seized over $500,000 in cash and approximately $10 million in forged memorabilia, including over 10,000 forged baseballs,' the FBI later said. 'Items seized had autographs from athletes and celebrities like Mother Teresa, Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Roberto Clemente, and Sammy Sosa. '

The indictment sets out the method by which the Fitzgeralds obtained fakes and the scale of the operation.

'The defendants sold over $2 million of sports and celebrity memorabilia to wholesale and retail customers, falsely representing the signatures of the celebrities and athletes to be genuine,' it says.

They were just one part of a machine that obtained photos or sports gear, along with blank certificates of authenticity, before sending them to a forger in California who would supply signatures copied from a 'black book' of originals, according to the indictment.

Baseballs with forged signatures of Babe Ruth recovered during Operation Bullpen

Rep. Nancy Mace posed for a snap with Fitzgerald at a Trump campaign rally in South Carolina

Gregory Marino, the forger in California, later estimated he faked more than a million signatures, using pens that matched the age of the player he was imitating. He and his brother were sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison and forfeited hundreds of thousands of dollars.

'The Marino defendants used various techniques, such as "dipping" of baseballs, in order to deceive victims and to make the items appear to be the appropriate age,' reads the indictment. 

The signed merchandise would then be sent to distributors.

'One of the largest primary distributors of the Marinos' false and fraudulent memorabilia is Defendant Stanley Fitzgerald,' reads the indictment, using his companies Stan's Sports Memorabilia and Stan The Man Sports Memorabilia, which they ran from their New Jersey home.

At times they make comical mistakes, such as the time Pierce Brosnan's (the fifth actor to play James Bond) signature is placed on a photograph of Timothy Dalton (the fourth Bond).

They were found out when one of the circle turned informer. 

The Fitzgeralds were eventually charged four and a half years after the raids shut down their business, just before the five-year statute of limitations kicked in. They were arraigned on 17 charges of mail fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.

As part of a plea agreement, they lost two homes, including one on the Jersey Shore that Fitzgerald bought with a $500,00 down payment days after the raid.

He was eventually sentenced to a year and three months in prison, reduced from seven years after he agreed to help out with other criminal cases. 

Yet today Fitzgerald insists he was the victim of a miscarriage of justice and hired a private investigator to make his case.

'Whether or not the FBI believed Fitzgerald to be guilty they did not have the evidence or they would have charged him in 1999,' said Patrick Collis of Spartan Investigations, in a press release shared by Fitzgerald. 

'What transpired over the following 58 months was weaponized government to coerce a confession.'

Fitzgerald did not respond to a request for further comment.