RIN:107

Symphony players are among victims
Lawyer hedges on restitution
By Michael D. Sorkin and Phillip Kennicott of the Post-Dispatch Staff
Copyright 1997, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
12/12/97

Warning that "you can't steal your way out of debt," a federal judge on Thursday sentenced confessed violin swindler Keith Bearden to two years in prison.

Bearden’s lawyer asked that he be sent to a prison camp at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla, with tennis courts, a weight room and no bars. The lawyers predicted that Bearden would be back in St. Louis at a halfway house in six to seven months. "He plans to write a book about his experiences’ said the lawyer, Scott Rosenblum. He also asked a judge to sharply reduce the sum Bearden must repay to those he swindled out of rare musical instruments and cash.

In his plea agreement, Bearden earlier agreed to make restitution of up to $1.5 million to his victims, including at least four St. Louis Symphony Orchestra musicians. But Rosenblum argued that the amount was inflated -- and that the person who inflated it was his client.  Bearden, 42, once dealt in rare instruments in a shop next to Powell Hall, home of the Symphony. Musicians left valuable instruments with Bearden on consignment, often on his promise that he had a buyer lined up and ready to pay top dollar.

Instead, Bearden stole scores of instruments, selling them in Japan or elsewhere. Rosenblum said the prices Bearden had promised the instruments would fetch were unrealistically high and that he shouldn’t have to repay that much.

"The chances that people will get back a significant portion of their actual losses -- as opposed to an inflated loss — is very, very good," Rosenblum said. U.S. District Judge Carol E. Jackson will decide at a hearing Jan. 27 how much Bearden must repay.

After prison, Bearden plans to return to his craft of bow making. Before he began trading in rare instruments, he was a world-class craftsman of violin bows. Rosenblum called Bearden a genius who stole after he couldn't pay some debts. "He was essentially robbing peter to pay Paul," Rosenblum said. Jackson said she was unconvinced. "That is an explanation — not an excuse, she told Bearden.   You can’t steal your way out of debt.’

Jackson acknowledged that Bearden is a man of unique talents. ‘But your talent and ability is not a shield against the consequences of your illegal conduct,’ she said. Bearden apologized to those he has hurt. ‘I’m sorry that all this happened,’ he told the judge. Jackson said an apology was not enough. She told Bearden that many of those he swindled were friends who had trusted him. ‘And you proved yourself to be unworthy of that trust,’ Jackson added.

Initially, Bearden had faced a maximum of 70 years in prison and a possible fine of $3.5 million. He avoided that by pleading guilty to all 14 counts of wire and mail fraud. That left the judge with the option of sentencing him to a range of 21 to 27 months. Jackson chose the middle ground: 24 months. She not fine him, saying he could not pay that and restitution.

In his guilty plea, Bearden agreed to help the FBI find the instruments he stole, many of which remain missing. Rosenblum said Bearden had fulfilled his obligation by telling everything he knew about the instruments whereabouts. Don Wilkerson, an assistant U.S. attorney, agreed that Bearden had cooperated but said none of the instruments can be recovered because they are out of the country. "We can't get a violin back from Japan," Wilkerson said. Prosecutors say they were lucky just to get Bearden extradited from Japan. He flew there late last year, one step ahead of an FBI investigation. A federal grand jury secretly indicted him, and in June he was arrested in Tokyo.

Two of Bearden's victims attended his sentencing. Authorities said that some complaints are still coming in and that they may never know how many people Were swindled or their total loss. One victim at Thursday’s hearing, a former Symphony violinist, had been Bearden’s customer since 1982. Bearden promised her a profit of $16,500 if she would pay him $65,000 for a bow he promised to resell. She borrowed $40,000 from her Individual Retirement Account and $25,000 from a neighbor. Bearden didn’t pay, and she called him frantically two or three times a day. He eventually gave her about half of the $65,000. She said she believed so strongly in Bearden that last year she persuaded a friend to give him a violin bow to sell. Bearden promised to sell it for $32,500 to $50,000 but never returned the bow or paid any money.

Another St. Louis woman met Bearden through his parents and ended up losing $350,000 to him. The loss included a $60,000 cello Bearden promised to sell. Another woman inherited a violin from her father-in-law. Bearden promised to sell it on consignment for $35,000. She never saw the violin or the money. A former Symphony cellist lost more than $475,000 to Bearden. In one transaction, she paid him $80,000 for a violin he promised to resell for $160,000. She never saw her money or the violin again.

In September 1996, a prominent St. Louis lawyer sent Bearden a client’s violin to sell for $200,000. By then, Bearden was in Japan; he promised to pay the full sum, even telling the lawyer at one point that he had sent him the money. FBI Agent Jeff Jensen had an unusual problem in the Bearden case: He had to convince nervous victims who feared embarrassment and further thefts if their names were made public. Some never came forward, while others refused to sign a complaint. Thursday morning, Bearden was brought into federal court in handcuffs. His brown hair was graying, and he seemed heavier than in recent photos. Wearing a wrinkled blue shirt with a banded collar and black pants, he chatted with his mother and aunt. His wife did not attend the sentencing.

One reason Bearden qualified for a two-year sentence was that he had no prior convictions. Immediately after the sentencing in federal court, he was taken to the St. Louis County Circuit Court in Clayton. There, he pleaded guilty to a state charge of stealing by deceit for having bounced a $30,000 check he wrote last year to a Symphony violinlst.

Judge Bernhardt C. Drumm Jr. allowed Bearden to serve his sentence at the same time he serves his federal sentence, put him on probation for five additional years and ordered him to repay the victim. One musician who has come forward was David Visentin of Winnipeg, Canada. He borrowed more than $240,000 from a bank and family members to invest with Bearden. Visentin was luckier than most; an insurance company recently paid him about half what Bearden stole. Visentin, said the settlement means he will recover financially in five years instead of 10.

"In the end, I really don’t know who Keith Bearden was," Visentin said In a telephone Interview. "He could lie repeatedly, fluently and unendingly." He said Bearden was getting off easy and speculated that he might have some of the stolen money stashed away. "It’s hard to believe that this hasn’t been part of a very clever gamble," Visentin said.

POSTnet has a history of the Bearden case. Go to http://www.stinet.com/ and click on Today’s links.