Rembrandt and a Louisville Slugger

Meet Marilyn Karos. She's a sweet lady of 65 years, just trying to make a living. Unfortunately, her livelihood consists of art fraud and other unsavory acts. She tried to bilk an undercover agent out of $2.8 million for a phony Rembrandt, trafficked in stolen antiquities, attempted to sell a pair of brass doors that she claimed (falsely) had belonged to Muhammad Ali, and once beat an associate with a baseball bat for trying to double-cross her.

Unrepentant at one of her recent sentencing hearings, she mockingly thanked the lead FBI agent on her case. "You didn't have to do this," she was heard to say, but apparently the FBI thought otherwise. She'll be a guest of the U.S. Government for at least the next 20 months.

The Glasgow Hustle

Noted magician R. Paul Wilson has signed on with the BBC to produce an eight-week series called "The Real Hustle" where he cons unsuspecting Brits out of their hard-earned money. Judging from the description it sounds like he's going to demonstrate a good number of well known cons, including (presumably) the lottery ticket, the necklace/violin hustle, the bank examiner, and probably several more. It should be a fun show to watch, so let's hope that BBC America picks it up for us Yanks. I'd love to see him try to pull the Run Out and get it on film, but we'll just have to wait and see.