CHICAGO — A showy red cape and an autographed Michael Jackson poster drew the most interest from potential buyers as a government auction of around a dozen personal items forfeited by prison-bound ex-congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. got underway Tuesday.
The online auction, which will accept bids over two weeks, is the U.S. Marshals Service way of trying to recoup part of the $750,000 in campaign funds the Chicago Democrat and his wife, Sandra, illegally spent — often to satisfy penchants for attention-grabbing clothes and pop-culture keepsakes.
The red cashmere cape drew the most attention in the hours just after bidding began early Tuesday. By evening, it registered 39 bids — pushing the initial asking price from around $300 to $965. Court documents say Jackson purchased it — with campaign funds — for $1,500 from an Edwards Lowell Furs store.
After a sluggish start, bidding surged during the day for a framed poster dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" album — and signed by the pop star himself. By Tuesday evening, there were 45 bids for it,— with the highest bidder willing to part with $1,560 for the pleasure of owning it.
Bids were fewer and farther between for a framed Bruce Lee autograph: It tallied a mere 16 bids by the evening. The highest was for $450.
Calculating existing bids for all the items being auctioned as of Wednesday evening, the feds looked to rake in more than $7,000 from the Jackson auction. Dozens of other frivolities he spent his donors' money on, including two stuffed elk heads and a football signed by U.S. presidents, aren't part of this auction.
The Jackson items up for auction aren't the oddest the Marshals Service has sold off to help pay felons' fines or court-mandated restitution. The underwear of convicted Wall Street fraudster Bernie Madoff was once auctioned by the same Texas-based company contracted to sell the Jackson belongings.
The notoriety surrounding a criminal case can sometimes boost the value of objects that — ironically in the Jacksons' case — become celebrity memorabilia in their own right, explained Jason Rzepniewski, an auctioneer at the Texas company, Gaston & Sheehan Auctioneers Inc.
