Town’s disgraced ex-buildings commissioner is putting out once more.
Months after admitting he couldn’t afford a lawyer in his political bribery case, Eric Ulrich desperately auctioned off his beloved 1958 Mickey Mantle baseball card.
However all he collected was $55 — minus a ten% donation to St. Jude’s Analysis Hospital and $14 in charges — leaving him with about sufficient money to purchase a sizzling canine and beer at Yankee Stadium.
He put his beaten-up, 66-year-old Topps All-Star Card #487 on eBay two months after he requested a Manhattan Supreme Court docket decide to nominate him a taxpayer-funded legal professional.
“It is a uncommon 1958 Topps buying and selling card that includes baseball legend Mickey Mantle in his All Star uniform,” Ulrich trumpeted on the public sale web page.
“The cardboard is well-preserved and is a good addition to any assortment. It’s ungraded, however its worth is plain.”
Mint situation variations of the cardboard, which options the Mick on a purple background with white stars, have gone for as a lot as $9,900 at public sale, however consultants mentioned Ulrich’s collectible was not prepared for the majors.
“It has … two print curler strains, one proper throughout the face, which is a serious detriment to the attention enchantment, and a extra faint one throughout its knees,” Jacob Salter, a purchaser at Bleecker Buying and selling in Manhattan, informed The Put up after reviewing the public sale photographs.
“We’d anticipate that card to go between $50 and $70, based mostly on historic gross sales.”
Critics relished the information that the Queens pol is now auctioning off mementos amid mounting authorized charges, having beforehand turned to hawking insurance coverage insurance policies to pay his payments.
“Eric Ulrich is simply putting out like his complete political profession,” mentioned Gavin Mario Wax, president of the New York Younger Republicans Membership. “Being pressured to promote baseball playing cards is a becoming finish to [his] corrupt, contemptible blight on the Republican Get together.”
One Queens political insider prompt Ulrich doubtless earned extra from the public sale than gross sales of a kids’s e book he self-published in September 2023, which imagined canines serving as judges and jurors and a chameleon as a metropolis council member.
“It’s nonetheless $55 greater than he constituted of his e book gross sales,” the individual quipped.
Later that month, the Manhattan DA’s workplace indicted Ulrich on 16 felony corruption prices, alleging he traded political favors way back to his Metropolis Council days for $150,000 in money and items, together with a bespoke go well with and Mets season tickets.
The previous Buildings honcho was subsequently slapped with a $150 million civil go well with in September by Runway Towing, which alleged Ulrich took bribes from a rival firm’s proprietor, who was additionally indicted final yr. Runway claims that in alternate for the items, Ulrich pressured the Division of Shopper and Employee Safety to axe its profitable metropolis contracts and working license.
Ulrich, who has pleaded not responsible to the fees, insisted the public sale had “nothing” to do along with his monetary straits and motivated solely by a want to assist St. Jude’s.
“In the course of the vacation season, we will all discover methods to present to charities that assist these in want,” he mentioned. “I’ve different collectible gadgets that I could public sale off sooner or later and completely shall be donating a number of the funds acquired to a worthy trigger.”
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