3rd Bass' Pete Nice Assists The Feds

They were once business associates who shared a passion for baseball lore. Now they are bitter enemies whose feud has sparked an FBI investigation into allegations of theft from the New York Public Library and raised new questions about the scandal-stained sports memorabilia business. Rapper-turned-writer Peter Nash, according to many sports memorabilia collectors, knows more about 19th century baseball than anybody in the collectors' hobby. Rob Lifson is the president of Robert Edward Auctions, perhaps sports memorabilia's most prestigious firm. Nash consigned old photos, documents and other pieces to Lifson's New Jersey auction house for years, but their relationship turned bitter after Nash failed to pay back hundreds of thousands of dollars he had borrowed from REA in 2005 and 2006. Now they are engaged in a bloody legal and public relations brawl that threatens to tarnish both of their reputations. "They are trying to pull each other into the gutter," says one hobby executive of Lifson and Nash, "and they are doing a good job of it." Nash sued Lifson in May of 2007, alleging that REA had wrongfully sold several pieces that he had put up as collateral for the loans. New Jersey Superior Court Judge Yolanda Ciccone granted Lifson's motion for a summary judgment in December (she later awarded a $760,000 judgment to Lifson). In January, Nash's lawyer sent a letter announcing that while Nash may have lost the legal battle, the war was far from over. "Mr. Nash has compiled, over time, and is compiling information that may impugn the business reputation of Mr. Lifson and possibly implicate him in criminal activity," Wolfgang Heimerl wrote to Lifson's attorney Barry Kozyra. "We see no benefit in bringing any of these issues to light in this matter, to which they are relevant, as it may put a cloud on Mr. Lifson and his ability to auction, in the ordinary course of business, any of the collateral items. To this point we have convinced our client to not respond to those inquiries as a show of good faith in bringing this matter to a global settlement. We do not know how long that will continue."
Nash didn't bite his tongue for long. Industry sources say Nash has waged a guerilla war for months against Lifson and Robert Edward Auctions, using hobby insiders and the press to raise questions about the auctioneer's integrity and attack his reputation. The hip-hop pioneer - Nash was known as Prime Minister Pete Nice two decades ago as a member of 3rd Bass, one of the first white rap groups with street credibility - has accused Lifson of stealing valuable memorabilia from the New York Public Library in a deposition and in private conversations with collectors, industry executives, reporters and law-enforcement officials.

Here's a look at what Pete looks like now

Jacked from NY Daily News