Movie prop money and magic tricks: How an NC jeweler got duped
A Mississippi man pleaded guilty to stealing jewelry from a North Carolina store in a scheme that investigators say involved movie money and a sleight-of-hand a trick — something typically used by magicians or performance artists.
Robert Elliott III pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to trying to use nearly $300,000 in fake money at the unnamed store in Pineville, just south of Charlotte.
Elliott gave a worker one genuine $10,000 stack of $100 bills on June 27, according to court documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. The employee gave that stack back to Elliott after counting and verifying it. Then Elliott used a ”sleight-of-hand technique to swap the authentic bills with a stack of counterfeit bills,” U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson said in a previous news release.
He did this 13 more times, then fled with $300,000 worth of watches and jewelry, including:
- a $90,000 Patek Phillipe diamond watch
- four Rolex watches worth $76,300
- a $48,000 Audemars Piguet watch
- a $25,000 Cartier watch
- a $32,000 rose Cuban link chain
- a $17,500 gold bracelet
- a $8,200 bangle bracelet
- diamond earrings worth $1,000
- 24k pointer earrings worth $2,000.
Federal prosecutors say two others were with him in Pineville.
Court documents allege that Elliott and two others tried similar schemes in Los Angeles. All three co-defendants have pleaded not guilty in their cases.
Elliott will be sentenced at a later hearing that has not yet been set.
