Tom Petty Performs At Scammed Groom's Wedding

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You'd think that a groom with enough spare cash around to spring for Tom Petty to perform at his wedding would be pretty savvy about scam artists. But no one is immune from thieves, and when Brian Valentine, a senior VP with Amazon.com thought he had in fact booked the artist behind "I Won't Back Down" and "Refugee," it turned out he'd been conned, according to The Smoking Gun.

Fortunately, there's not just one, but two happy endings here.

As Valentine told FBI agents, he and his fiancee Gianna Puerini (also an Amazon employee) got engaged in 2010, at a Tom Petty concert, and decided to wed in 2012. In late 2011, Valentine "decided that he wanted to have Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers perform at his wedding as a gift to his fiancee," FBI agent Eric Petersen explained in a document obtained by The Smoking Gun.
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Research led Valentine to Chad Christopher Lund's website (lundlive.com, no longer active), which claimed he could book Run-DMC, Kansas, Ludacris and Tom Petty, among others. Lund said he talked Petty's representatives down to a mere $330,000 for the gig, and Valentine signed a contract, then wired off half of the fee -- $165,000 -- to Lund's bank account.

After a series of bogus email addresses sent by Lund to Valentine to contact Petty's management failed to pan out, Valentine tracked down Petty's actual manager, who told Valentine in an email that he "had been defrauded." So the groom went after Lund with a private investigator -- and then the FBI. So, happy ending No. 1: Lund was arrested in Illinois on Aug. 2 by the feds on felony charges.

But the real happy ending occurred in July -- when Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers actually did show up at the July 21 Seattle wedding reception. According to the Facebook page of wedding planners True Colors Events, "After over a year and a half of working with an absolutely incredible couple in complete secrecy, it was beyond amazing to surprise the guests of their wedding with these amazing performances."

As The Smoking Gun reported, "The guy and his wife were the nicest people in the world," said one member of the road crew.