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description= The Hunt for Looted Antiquities in the World s Museums;
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y s legal expert speaks i can t rule out they used my advice to evade the law posted on july 10 2017 11 comments in july 2010 steve green president of the hobby lobby chain of craft stores travelled to the united arab emirates to inspect a massive hoard of ancient artifacts a year earlier green and his advisor scott carroll had begun building one of the world s biggest collections of biblical relics and manuscripts in less than 24 months the two would acquire more than 40 000 objects building the green collection into the newest and largest private collections of rare biblical texts and artifacts in the world steve green and his antiquities advisor scott carroll ny times those objects will form the core collection of the museum of the bible a 430 000 square foot building that hobby lobby is building blocks from the national mall when it opens in the fall of 2017 its mission is to bring the bible to life pitching green and carroll that day in the uae warehouse were two israeli antiquities dealers and a third local dealer all unnamed in the complaint they were offering some 1 500 cuneiform tablets 500 cuneiform bricks 3 000 clay bullae 35 clay envelope seals 13 extra large cuneiform tablets and 500 stone cylinder seals according to a federal forfeiture complaint filed last week the sample of those objects made available for inspection that day bore several hallmarks of the illicit antiquities trade they were displayed informally according to the complaint spread out on the floor before him arranged in layers on a coffee table and packed loosely in cardboard boxes in many instances with little or no protective material between them they belonged not to any of the three dealers present but to a fourth who claimed they had come from his family collection in israel as for their provenance the dealers claimed the objects had been legally acquired in the late 1960s from local markets bizarrely they also said the objects had been sent to mississippi for storage in the 1970s and had most recently been in washington dc before being shipped to the uae for that day s inspection the final red flag the objects were being sold at a deep discount carroll thought the objects were worth approximately 11 8 million but were being offered for sale that day for just 2 million after green got back to oklahoma city where hobby lobby is based the company s in house lawyer contacted an expert in cultural property law according to the complaint in august 2010 that unnamed expert travelled to oklahoma and gave a presentation to green carroll and the company lawyer on the laws governing the purchase and importation of cultural property the presentation is cited prominently in the government s recital of evidence leading to last week s civil forfeiture of 5 500 ancient objects that green bought in december 2010 for 1 6 million responding to the seizure green released a statement saying he did not fully appreciate the complexities of the acquisitions process an interview with green s expert however suggests a different story green and his advisors were given detailed guidance from one of the leading legal minds on antiquities acquisitions and then chose to ignore it i have confirmed that green s unnamed expert was patty gerstenblith one of the country s leading experts in cultural property law and a professor at depaul university i reached gerstenblith yesterday while she was in the hague participating in an expert consultation on policy on cultural property at the office of the prosecutor of the international criminal court what follows are excerpts from our conversation about her work for hobby lobby edited lightly for length and clarity chasing aphrodite how did you start working as an advisor for the greens patty gerstenblith the in house counsel i d rather not name the person as they re not named in the complaint asked if i would be willing to explain the legal issues involved in importing cultural works and antiquities what laws would pertain this was 7 years ago they were planning to build the collection i had never heard of hobby lobby but saw they had recently acquired a medieval manuscript that had almost singlehandedly changed the market i agreed to advise them ca were you hired as legal counsel pg no i was not engaged as an attorney and i didn t act as their attorney i acted as an expert and consultant they compensated me gerstenblith declined to state how much she was paid for the engagement ca can you describe the presentation you gave to hobby lobby executives in oklahoma city on august 10 2010 pg it was a board room or seminar room there were between 10 and 15 people there the in house counsel and the advisor steve green was there to my memory i don t know if he stayed for the entire presentation i have no idea who the other people were i gave them very general information about laws that applied to importation of antiquities the same i would do in a public lecture i went through the national stolen property act declarations of value and country of origin ca what was their reaction to your presentation pg i can t say they reacted one way or the other they didn t seem surprised or upset which in hindsight is kind of surprising the impression i had at the time was that they were only considering buying antiquities i had no idea until i read the complaint released last week that this was already in process they had already earlier in july before i talked to them looked at cuneiform tablets you would think if i m talking about you have to do this and that and they re already in negotiations they would have had some reaction to what i said i m pretty mystified why they bothered to have me do this for them ca did they ask specifically about laws pertaining to iraq or the middle east pg at the time i knew their reputation in terms of their interest in things that pertained to the bible after my presentation we had a little lunch that s possibly when i found out their interest in cuneiform tablets ca the complaint says you sent a written report to hobby lobby on october 19 2010 what was the purpose of that memo can you provide us a copy of it pg when i finished the presentation the in house counsel asked me to write up a summary it took me a while to get to it it summarized what i had presented but at this point i had been aware they were thinking of acquiring things from iraq so made sure this was included in the memo gerstenblith said she could not provide a copy of her memo on the law but the federal complaint quotes from it in part as follows i would regard the acquisition of any artifact likely from iraq which could be described as mesopotamian assyrian akkadian sumerian babylonian parthian sassanian and possibly other historic or cultural terms as carrying considerable risk an estimated 200 500 000 objects have been looted from archaeological sites in iraq since the early 1990s particularly popular on the market and likely to have been looted are cylinder seals cuneiform tablets any object brought into the us and with iraq declared as country of origin has a high chance of being detained by us customs if such an object has been brought into the us in the past few years and was not stopped by us customs then you need to examine the import documents to see if the country of origin was properly declared an improper declaration of country of origin can also lead to seizure and forfeiture of the object the complaint continues the expert s memorandum further advised hobby lobby that cultural property looted from iraq since 1990 is specifically protected by import restrictions that carry criminal penalties and fines the expert s memorandum was received by in house counsel but was not shared with hobby lobby s president consultant executive assistant international department outside customs brokers or anyone involved in the purchase and importation of the defendants in rem pg they didn t even pass my advice on i was surprised to learn that in the complaint why did they both having me do this the memorandum i wrote was never circulated beyond in house legal counsel and they were already in the process of acquiring these objects ca was there any follow up did they ask you to review any specific cases or documents after that pg my involvement as an expert for hobby lobby ended after i gave them the memo there was no follow up no review of specific cases or documents or any specific objects pertaining to importation i never evaluated anything for them ca according to the federal complaint they later did the very things you warned against do you think they used your advice to break the law rather than to follow it in other words do you feel used pg i suppose one can t rule that out which would be very upsetting to me i can t rule that out my goal was to discourage them from doing the wrong thing by telling them all the wrong things they could do i thought they would not want to do those things i can t rule out it was all the opposite that they used my advice to evade the law as opposed to follow the law ca many have asked why were there no criminal charges in this case as a law professor what s your answer pg there is a lot here that does read as a red flag shipping boxes to various locations mislabeling cuneiform tablets as ceramic tiles these have in many cases been the hallmarks of intentional violations of customs laws yes it looks like there was criminal activity but its not clear who committed the crime the government would have to prove criminal knowledge beyond a reasonable doubt a jury would have to find that these people knew not only what the law was but also that they were responsible for how the stuff was falsely labeled when it was imported i have to assume the government felt it would have difficulty proving who knew what one difference from the schultz case is the number of people involved schultz was doing it all himself here there were so many people involved they ve created plausbile deniability as to who knew what ca in your view what deterrent effect do seizures like this have without criminal prosecutions pg the trend has unfortunately been away from prosecution there s a tendency to be happy with forfeiture these cases in general have very little deterrent effect most collectors and dealers having to return an object thereby loosing the vaulue is not really a big financial loss in the case of hobby lobby not at all therefore its not a deterrent i have come to believe that criminal prosecution is the only effective deterrent i m not the only person who s made this comment share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin share on reddit opens in new window reddit email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print like loading 11 comments posted in news tagged antiquities cuneiform tablets hobby lobby looting museum of the bible patty gerstenblith scott carroll smuggling steve green the green collection updated help wanted we re tracking down objects sold by nancy and doris wiener posted on january 5 2017 2 comments in the wake of the arrest of the manhattan antiquities dealer nancy wiener we re teaming up with our friends at the india pride project to track down the ancient objects she and her mother doris wiener sold to museums and private collectors around the world and we need your help prosecutors allege the two conspired for decades with a network of smugglers and middlemen to obtain looted and stolen antiquities from across asia many of those objects passed through auction houses before being purchased by museums and private collectors see our earlier coverage here where are these objects today where did they come from and how many of them have a documented ownership history that stands up to scrutiny to answer those questions we want your help searching asian art collections around the globe for objects tied to the wieners as we find them we ll post them here examine their ownership histories and with ipp s help try to identify where they may have come from here s how you can chip in search the online archives of major asian art collections around the world for objects tied to nancy or doris wieners or their galleries for collections that don t have comprehensive online catalogs contact the institution and politely ask for information on any objects acquired or donated by either of the wieners when you find an object post a link to it in the comments below along with the object s stated ownership history if any is provided or email me at chasingaphrodite gmail com we ll credit you with the find unless you prefer to remain anonymous anonymous tips are also welcome especially when they come with documents we re serious about protecting the identity of sources as we find wiener objects we ll add them to a list below along with suggestions for additional research steps findings updated 2 5 17 in our first month readers have found dozens of objects tied to nancy and doris wiener at museums around the world several require additional research the boston museum of fine art and the freer and sackler gallery have both reached out to share ownership histories of wiener objects in their collections smithsonian s freer and sackler gallery keri douglas keridouglas identified three objects at the smithsonian s freer and sackler galleries tied to doris wiener of particular note is this chola bronze f2003 2 from tamil nadu india the source of hundreds of looted objects identified in the case against subhash kapoor who did business with the wieners update 1 31 17 the freer and sackler s head of collections management elizabeth duly reached out to say the museum has posted provenance details for the four objects on its provenance research page we re grateful for the museum s openness the ownership history for the chola bronze has several red flags it includes an invoice stating that doris wiener bought the object from rajrama art galleries in london in march 1973 six months after india passed its national patrimony law in september 1972 wiener claimed in a 1995 letter to then curator vidya dehejia that she had actually purchased the bronze months earlier and that it was seen in 1973 by indian art authority pratapaditya pal it s unclear what motivated the letter the story suggests that wiener held the valuable bronze for 29 years without publication or sale before selling it to the smithsonian in 2002 we asked vijay kumar an expert on south indian art and smuggling networks who has consulted for u s law enforcement to review the museum s posting the given paperwork is straightaway problematic since the bronze has no provenance pre 1972 and no information on how it reached london pre 1972 kumar wrote as for the 1995 letter there is no apparent reason for this explanation but an attempt to push the objects acquisition back by a year observing the patina kumar noted the condition of the bronze especially the holes in...
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