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Journal North: Home | Sports | Opinion | Obits | Entertainment
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Retiree Pleads Guilty To Scam
By Raam Wong
Journal Staff Writer
“The golden years” is one expression that a Santa Fe retiree may want to rethink.
Glenn M. Teal, who retired to the City Different a couple of years ago, admitted this week that he smuggled some $850,000 worth of gold coins into Mexico.
Court documents in the case read like a plot line from “The Thomas Crown Affair,” with an international conspiracy that included phony federal contracts, white-sand beaches and bars of gold hidden in the front bumper of a Land Cruiser.
The case had made headlines across the country and been featured on “America's Most Wanted.”
Teal's guilty plea in a Richmond, Va., courtroom Monday is the fifth conviction in the federal case. He faces up to five years imprisonment on the charge of conspiracy to smuggle goods.
Teal has already forfeited his interest in the gold coins, along with a $4,500 Italian watch he received as a payment.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in eastern Virginia said Teal, 53, moved to Santa Fe from New Jersey a couple of years ago.
A Glenn M. Teal who is the same age as the man convicted this week has officiated football and baseball games for the New Mexico Athletic Association during the past two years, a NMAA spokesman said Tuesday. It is not known if that is the same man in the smuggling case.
Teal's attorney, William Dinkin, declined to comment except to confirm that Teal lived in Santa Fe.
Teal was working as a New Jersey corrections officer when he first met an inmate by the name of Roger Charles Day Jr. sometime between 2000 and 2004, according to court documents. But Teal did not become involved until relatively late in the scheme.
Day and three other men are accused of forming dozens of companies that sold the U.S. Department of Defense cheap, defective weapons parts for some $3.7 million.
“In all known cases, the parts sent by the conspirators could not be used for their intended purpose,” states a U.S. Attorney's Office news release.
The proceeds allowed the men to purchase about $2 million in gold bars and coins from a dealership in Phoenix between May 2006 and November 2006.
In June 2006, a mechanic modified a Land Cruiser to hide $1.2 million in gold bars in the bumper. The truck was then driven over the border at Laredo, Texas, into Mexico, where the gold was delivered to Day, who had moved there after his release from prison.
Teal has admitted to then being brought into the operation during meetings at a New Jersey steakhouse and a face-to-face with Day in Cancun.
It was in the Mexican resort town of Playa del Carmen that a Florida watch dealer delivered a number of timepieces to Day, who in turn gave Teal a Panerai submersible watch for his troubles, according to court records.
In February 2007, authorities say a European auto mechanic in Houston helped the conspirators hide the coins inside the rear hatch of an Austrian Pinzaguer, a military utility vehicle owned by Day.
Teal admitted this week that he drove the truck across the border, delivering the gold to Day.
“Neither Teal nor any other member of the conspiracy completed and filed a Shipper's Export Declaration with respect to the approximately $850,000 worth of gold coins,” court documents allege.
Day, who was portrayed on “America's Most Wanted” as having a love of expensive watches and fine cigars, was arrested in Cancun on July 31, 2008, and is awaiting extradition to the United States.
Teal's sentencing hearing is set for Sept. 22 in Virginia.
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