Man Arrested in Sale of Bogus Autographed Photos

A Luftwaffe flying ace’s signature was worth a lot of money to a Newport Beach man, police said Tuesday--enough for him to sell hundreds of forgeries of it to unwary autograph collectors in Thousand Oaks.

Thomas Shutt II, 48, now faces charges of grand theft by fraud, they said, for selling bogus autographed photos of German World War II flier Erich Hartmann, the most successful fighter pilot of all time.

Shutt’s arrest could lead to the discovery of other forgeries in the lucrative autograph trade, Ventura County Sheriff’s Detective Stanley Weber said.

“We can’t prove yet that he’s the one who actually signed them,” Weber said. “We may have to start calling other dealers and see if they have dealt with Mr. Shutt before.”

Shutt could not be reached Tuesday for comment. He was released Monday on his own recognizance.

The Shutt case sheds light on the musty world of World War II memorabilia dealers, who hire veterans of Allied and Axis fighting forces to sign thick stacks of photos that can sell for $75 to $100 each.

Hartmann, credited with shooting down 352 Allied warplanes--most of them Russian--signed dozens of photos and lithographs before his death in October.

And when Shutt offered a box of Hartmann photos to Thousand Oaks-based autograph dealers Terry and Angelika Kinsella, they said they were interested.

For nearly 20 years, the Kinsellas had been dealing in autographs and photos of famous and notorious historical figures under the name A Piece of History International.

They had worked with the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles, helping to procure a document signed by Auschwitz concentration camp Dr. Josef Mengele and overseeing preservation of letters by Jewish diarist Anne Frank.

They recently published a biography of Grace Kelly, titled as she often signed her letters, “With Love, Gracie.”

And the Kinsellas had developed a taste for “militaria”--the photos, documents and autographs left behind by famous wartime personalities, particularly from World War II.

They even sold some of those items to Shutt over the years--including the signature of Nazi architect Albert Speer--for use in his own autograph business in Tustin, called King’s Crown Gallery, Terry Kinsella said.

So when Shutt announced in April that he was closing shop and offered to sell off his inventory, the Kinsellas met him in the lush lobby of the Westlake Hyatt Regency.

Showing them photocopies of letters Hartmann had written to him, Shutt offered to sell the Kinsellas a box of photographs, police said. The Kinsellas said the box contained 140 Hartmann glossies and 10 signed photos of Hans Baur, Adolf Hitler’s personal pilot.

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When Shutt opened his car trunk in the parking lot, the couple glanced at the top of the pile and hurriedly paid him $1,500 for the lot because they were rushing off on a publicity tour for the Kelly biography, Terry Kinsella said.

But after talking about Shutt with a fellow dealer, Kinsella says he grew suspicious.

“I went to the safes, took the photos out and spread them out on the desk, and said, ‘Uh-oh, definite forgeries,’ ” he said. Police confirm that the signatures were forged.

Ink had pooled along the signature’s looping lines, indicating the stop-and-start drawing of someone tracing an original Hartmann autograph, Kinsella said.

And when he held a thin stack of photos up to the light, Kinsella said, the signatures all stacked perfectly atop each other as if they were one.

On advice of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Kinsella took the photos to another autograph dealer, who also concluded that they were forged.

Then the couple called Ventura County detectives.

They arranged to talk to Shutt about buying his whole collection and steered him again to the Hyatt lobby, where Weber sat nearby in plainclothes, police said.

“I said, ‘Bring everything you have, we’ll settle on a price,’ ” Kinsella said.

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After a little haggling, the Kinsellas agreed to buy some of the items, including more signed Hartmann photos, for $4,200, and took Shutt outside to consummate the deal, police said.

There, he was arrested by Weber and Detectives William Gentry and Hal Sullivan.

Weber said the detectives confiscated the rest of Shutt’s collection, which includes forged signatures of at least eight to 10 other famous war figures, including renowned American fighter pilot Joe Foss.

On Tuesday, the Kinsellas said they take the blame for falling for the alleged forgeries.

“We have been taken before, and every major dealer in the nation has at one time or another,” Kinsella said. “Our fallacy is we were really in a hurry.”