By James Rincon

Pflag Reporter

Far removed from his $7 million Manhattan apartment, former billionaire financier Bernard Madoff spent Nov. 14 in a federal prison cell in Butner, N.C. while, back in New York City, a Pflugerville-family startup sold away his swag.

Bob and Michelle Sheehan have lived in Pflugerville since 1976. In April of 1988, the Sheehans partnered with Paul Gaston to found Gaston & Sheehan Auctioneers. The local company has since expanded across Texas, with branches in El Paso and San Antonio.

During their years of growth, Gaston & Sheehan have worked in a successful partnership with the U.S. Marshals Service to auction off fine art and jewelry seized by federal authorities – a partnership that put the company in charge of one of the highest-profile auctions in the country.

“The auction was well attended. It was unbelievable,” Michelle Sheehan said. “You hear about New York and people being gruff, but people were wonderful — they were lovely. We were so pleased, but of course we were dealing mostly with Wall Street people and Madison Avenue types.”

Conservative estimates for the items sold totaled over $850,000 including a diamond bracelet valued between $15,600 and $23,400 and a vintage Rolex known as the “Prisoner’s Watch” valued between $75,000 and $87,500.

“The notoriety of this auction was affected because of two factors,” said Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Roland Ubaldo, who was on hand for the event. “One being the Madoff name and two because this auction . . . was hosted in New York City. So you have two factors there that multiplied the attention to another degree.”

Selling to a crowd of more than 700 live bidders, Gaston & Sheehan brought some southern style to Big Apple.

“The bidding was just a lot of fun,” Sheehan said. “They’re used to the quiet auctions – ‘would you take $100,000?’ – and that’s not the type of auction we run. Ours are exciting and full of pep, and people are yupping and yelling, which is unusual for the New York crowd. We had people come up to us and say it was the most fun they’ve ever had.”

The Marshals and Gaston & Sheehan sold each of the 190 lots of former Madoff property, which including 50 wristwatches, for an amount that more than doubled the estimated value. And despite a deluge of media attention, the atmosphere of the affair was amiable, Ubaldo said.

“The chemistry between Gaston and Sheehan and the U.S. Marshals on Saturday was great,” He said. “It worked out well. The New York City crowd was very interested in this auction and that proved true on Saturday.”

After Madoff plead guilty to 11 felony fraud charges and was sentenced to 150 years in federal prison “all personal property was subject to seizure,” Ubaldo said.

“In fact when we seized the properties in New York, Ruth Madoff was ordered to surrender all personal property to the U.S. Marshal Service,” he said.

Sheehan said in recent years the face of the federal criminal has started to change and with it the quality of property on the auction block.

When the Marshals seized Madoff’s possessions she knew the company would be involved, though she did not predict exactly what that would entail.

“Years ago we saw a lot of what we would term maybe drug dealer stuff,” Sheehan said. “But now we’re seeing more and more white-collar crime and with that it’s not so much flashy stuff as it is high high quality.”

Proceeds of the auction will go to victims of Madoff’s $50 billion Ponzi scheme via the U.S. Department of Justice Fund. As for the more than 2,000 items of Madoff’s property seized by U.S. Marshals that weren’t on the Nov. 14 auction block, “we are not done,” Ubaldo said. “We’re not done by a long shot.”