FEATURED WEB SITE Público Deposited
The E-Sylum: Volume 7, Number 20, May 16, 2004, Article 19
FEATURED WEB SITE
This week's featured web site is Court TV's Crime Library
section on Mark Hofmann and what came to be known as
the Mormon Forgery Murders. From Chapter 14:"Once Mark Hofmann began to talk, he spoke freely of his
many deals. As a kid, he had loved explosives and magic.
He also liked to enrich himself and had shown a streak of
dishonesty. He learned quickly how to fool people and he
enjoyed that sense of power. Then he turned to outright
fraud. By age 12, he had acquired an electroplate machine
and learned to build up the mintmark--a 'D'--on a Denver
dime, because it made the otherwise ordinary coin worth
thousands of dollars. Then he located a coin dealer to
authenticate it through the U.S. Treasury...""When he was 13, Hofmann began to collect Mormon
memorabilia, and then to manufacture them on his own.
As he learned how to trade these items, he grew obsessed
with the church's history and he went on to become a
dealer in rare documents. At first he created and sold only
fragments, but then he worked on longer pieces and invited
investors into Ponzi schemes, borrowing from one to pay
another."- 2004-05-16
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