A Wilton Golf Club Laundering Caper

Police arrested Edward Cribari, 58, of Bridgeport, for two separate counts of larceny which involve allegations of three-month long scam in which the accused stole about $9,000 worth of golf clubs from a Wilton-based corporation and allegedly sold them for his own gain.

The incident began when someone at ’s parent company, Conde Nast (which also operates out of the same office building in Wilton) noticed that an unreleased prototype golf club, the Ping I20 8.5 Driver, which had been in the company’s possession for photo-shoot/preview purposes, appeared on eBay for $1,000. The prototype was supposed to be released August of this year, and upon subsequent inspection, the company found that prototype was missing from their building.

Police tracked down the seller, who then offered the name of another company from which that seller had received the prototype: Pro Clubs, a business located in Arizona which appears to specialize in selling golf clubs on eBay. Pro Clubs was fully cooperative, police said, and identified the accused as selling them not only the prototype (which Pro Clubs bought for $250 from Cribari, allegedly), but a number of other golf clubs as well.

Police said that Cribari was employed at Golf Digest and was occasionally given clubs which he was supposed to donate to certain charities. Allegedly, the accused sold $3,000 worth of these clubs instead of using them for their intended purposes. In addition to that, police said the accused also outright stole $6,000 worth of clubs –clubs not entrusted in his care—and sold those as well, which is why Cribari is charged with two distinct counts of third-degree larceny.

Police said these events occurred over the period of Oct. through Dec. of last year. The accused has also been charged with one charge of providing a false statement to police; police said that they found some of Cribari’s signed written statement to be fallacious.

Wilton Police arrested Cribari after serving him a court-order warrant, and the accused was held on a $25,000 bond by Norwalk Court.