Magician David Copperfield pulled a sleight of hand on robbers who demanded his wallet at gunpoint on Sunday night, after a performance in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Hey for any guy who can make the Statue of Liberty disappear and marry supermodel Claudia Schieffer, fooling a bunch of dumbs**t teens must have seemed like Magic 101.
As the story unfolds, the master magician and two assistants, Cathy Daly and Mia Volmut, were walking back to their tour bus when a black car pulled up beside them.
"At first we thought they were just more people wanting autographs," a spokesperson read in a statement for Copperfield. "They told us to give them money and our stuff. At that point we realized that there were guns in our face."
His assistants handed over money, plane tickets and other various items. Copperfield turned his pockets inside out to show he had nothing on him - a sleight of hand by the illusionist. "Call it reverse pickpocketing," Copperfield later said. He still had his passport, wallet and cell phone, and gave the teens nothing.
As the assailants drove away, Copperfield and Daly took down the car's license plate numbers and called the police. Officers quickly arrived on the scene and captured the suspects, who were later positively identified by the victims. Police say four teenagers were arrested, charged with armed robbery and held without bond and all stolen property was recovered.
Copperfield's spokesperson added, "I look forward to coming back to Palm Beach in the future, knowing that crime can happen anywhere, but from what I witnessed from the officers that night, we were lucky to be in Palm Beach when it did happen."
