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UkSkipco Auto Auction sale of famous movie vehicles generates nearly $500K
Skipco Auto Auction (SAA) recently hosted a sale of famous movie vehicles that were forfeited to the U.S. Marshals Service. Photo courtesy of the auction.
Friday, Aug. 28, 2020, 08:09 PM
Auto Remarketing Staff
CANAL FULTON, Ohio –
Skipco Auto Auction recently conducted its own version of when a movie director announces, “Lights! Camera! Action!”
SAA served as a service provider for federal authorities who looked to recovery money stemming from famous movie vehicles included in a $43 million Medicaid fraud case in Youngstown, Ohio.
SAA sold nearly $500,000 in special vehicles that were a part of a U.S. Marshals Service enforcement action. The auction had more than 870 registered bidders online and in the lanes to bid on the “Ghostbusters” Ectomobile, Batman’s “Batmobile” and the “Back to the Future” DeLorean time machine.
The auction said each of the vehicles had more than 200 bids with the “Ghostbusters” vehicle selling for $200,000, the “Batmobile for $171,000 and the DeLorean for $111,000.
SAA noted that all three vehicles were bought by the same out-of-state buyer.
According to a news release from the auction, the U.S. Marshal service sold a total of 15 vehicles for more than $750,000. Janet Duncan, district asset forfeiture coordinator with the U.S. Marshals’ office in Cleveland said, “the cars were seized as ill-gotten gains” and forfeited in the criminal cases.
Skipco Auto Auction general manager Keith Blowers mentioned that bidders in the lanes for this special sale represented more than 15 states.
“It was an exciting day for the attendees and the employees of Skipco,” Blowers said in the news release. “We have been waiting to the sell these vehicles and to have it go off as well as it did, made me enormously proud of our team.”
“It was also great to see the enjoyment of buyers taking pictures with all their favorite movie vehicles,” he went on to say.
Skipco Auto Auction was founded in 1978 by Robert Blowers and hosts Saturday sales open to automotive retailers. The auction offers 500 units weekly across four simultaneous lanes.
In addition to cars and trucks, the sale also includes motorcycles, ATVs, boats, campers, RVs, and powersports equipment. SAA has full reconditioning and mechanical facilities, in-house transportation and trucking services, AutoIMS and full integrated online capabilities.
Sheridan’s replica movie cars to be sold at auction
Three replica movie cars seized from the Leetonia home of former Braking Point Recovery Center owner Ryan Sheridan are slated to be sold at auction Aug. 1.
Up for grabs are a 1981 DeLorean customized to look like the car from the film “Back to the Future,” a 1959 Cadillac customized to look like the “Ghostbusters” Ectomobile and a 1995 Chevrolet Caprice Classic designed to look like a Batmobile from the D.C. comic.
“These three flashy cars are an example of ill-gotten gains obtained with the tens of millions of dollars that Ryan Sheridan stole from Medicare, and therefore American taxpayers,” said U.S. Marshal Pete Elliott of the Northern District of Ohio. “The U.S. Marshals routinely sell vehicles, real estate and other assets in order to return proceeds to victims of federal crimes.”
Sheridan was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison in January after he pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in October 2019 to 60 criminal charges.
Sheridan’s Austintown drug and alcohol recovery rehabilitation business submitted approximately 134,744 claims to Medicaid for more than $48.5 million in services it claimed to provide between May 2015 and October 2017, according to prosecutors.
The claims caused Medicaid to pay Braking Point more than $31 million before payments were suspended on Oct. 18, 2017.
Sheridan agreed to forfeit multiple properties to offset the $24.5 million he and two top Braking Point managers are ordered to repay.
In a letter written to the court, Sheridan’s brother, James Sheridan, said his replica cars were used “for charities” and that the pair dressed up as ghostbusters or as Batman and Robin.
The vehicles will be at auction 9 a.m. Aug 1. at Skipco Auto Auction, 700 Elm Ridge Ave., Canal Fulton. Attendance will be limited to 120 people to allow proper social distancing and facial coverings are encouraged.
The auction will be simulcast on the web, so people can attend without participating in person. Participants need to register online at Skipco’s website and then call Skipco for an access code by July 31.