Arizona Auctioneer Indicted in Theft Case

More people behaving badly

In an earlier posting today we brought you the story of an Australian man who was jailed there for gift card fraud on eBay. Now we've got word of yet another auction-related crook, from Phoenix's KPHO.com:

A man who made a living as an auctioneer faces eight criminal counts in connection with a theft case that involved more than 50 victims, the county attorney's office said.

Robert Huillier, 49, was indicted on five counts of theft and three counts of fraudulent schemes.

The crimes allegedly happened between July 2005 and January 2008.

Huillier took $200,000 from a widow and promised to put some of the money into an annuity and put the rest in a trust account, according to a probable cause statement filed by Scottsdale Police. He also promised her monthly payments of more than $3,000 a month, the statement said.

The victim received slow payments, and payments made from bounced checks, investigators said. When the victim asked for her money back, he paid her with two checks that bounced, police said.

Another victim accused Huillier of receiving more than $1.3 million to buy estates or items from museums and then auctioning them off, according to the case summary from Scottsdale police.

Huillier and the victim were then to have split the profits, authorities said. Huillier never made those purchases, police said.

More victims accuse Huillier of auctioning off their property and failing to give them the proceeds from the auctions, the police statement said. Huillier is accused of failing to return items that did not get sold at auction, investigators said.