The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York Aphrodite Lobby

In July 2010, Steve Greenish, president of the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores, travelled to the United Arab Emirates to audit a massive hoard of ancient artifacts.

A yr earlier, Light-green and his advisor Scott Carroll had begun building 1 of the world's biggest collections of biblical relics and manuscripts. In less than 24 months, the two would acquire more 40,000 objects, building The Green Collection into "the newest and largest individual collections of rare biblical texts and artifacts in the earth."

Steve Greenish and his antiquities advisor Scott Carroll (NY Times)

Those objects will course the cadre 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 Greenish and Carroll that day in the UAE warehouse were ii Israeli antiquities dealers and a third local dealer (all unnamed in the complaint.) They were offer some 1,500 cuneiform tablets, 500 cuneiform bricks, three,000 dirt bullae, 35 clay envelope seals, 13 extra-large cuneiform tablets and 500 stone cylinder seals, co-ordinate to a federal forfeiture complaint filed last calendar week.

The sample of those objects fabricated 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 flooring earlier him, arranged in layers on a java table, and packed loosely in cardboard boxes, in many instances with little or no protective textile betwixt them."

They belonged not to any of the three dealers nowadays just to a fourth, who claimed they had come from his "family collection" in State of 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 about recently been in Washington DC before beingness shipped to the UAE for that day's inspection.

The final ruddy flag: the objects were being sold at a deep disbelieve. Carroll thought the objects were worth approximately $eleven.viii 1000000, only were being offered for sale that day for just $ii million.

Subsequently Light-green got back to Oklahoma City, where Hobby Foyer is based, the company'south in house lawyer contacted an expert in cultural belongings law. According to the complaint, in August 2010 that unnamed expert travelled to Oklahoma and gave a presentation to Dark-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 five,500 ancient objects that Green bought in December 2010 for $1.half dozen meg.

Responding to the seizure, Green released a statement saying he "did not fully capeesh the complexities of the acquisitions process."

An interview with Green's proficient, however, suggests a different story: Greenish and his advisors were given detailed guidance from ane of the leading legal minds on antiquities acquisitions, and then chose to ignore it.

I take confirmed that Green's unnamed skillful was Patty Gerstenblith, i 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 Skillful Consultation on Policy on Cultural Holding at the Role of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Courtroom. What follows are excerpts from our conversation near her piece of work for Hobby Lobby, edited lightly for length and clarity.

Chasing Aphrodite: How did you start working equally an advisor for the Greens?

Patty Gerstenblith: The in house counsel – I'd rather non proper name the person, as they're not named in the complaint – asked if I would be willing to explicate the legal bug involved in importing cultural works and antiquities, what laws would pertain. This was vii years ago.

They were planning to build the collection. I had never heard of Hobby Entrance hall simply saw they had recently acquired a medieval manuscript that had near singlehandedly changed the marketplace. I agreed to advise them.

CA: Were y'all hired as legal counsel?

PG: No. I was not engaged as an attorney, and I didn't human activity as their chaser. I acted as an expert and consultant. They compensated me. [Gerstenblith declined to country how much she was paid for the appointment.]

CA: Tin yous depict the presentation you gave to Hobby Lobby executives in Oklahoma City on Baronial x, 2010?

PG:It was a board room or seminar room. There were between 10 and 15 people there. The in firm counsel, and the advisor. Steve Green was at that place to my memory. I don't know if he stayed for the entire presentation. I accept no idea who the other people were.

I gave them very general data about laws that applied to importation of antiquities, the same I would practice in a public lecture. I went through the National Stolen Property Act, declarations of value and state 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 retrospect is kind of surprising. The impression I had at the time was that they were but considering buying antiquities. I had no idea until I read the complaint [released last calendar 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 nigh… you take to exercise this and that and they're already in negotiations, they would take had some reaction to what I said. I'1000 pretty mystified why they bothered to accept me do this for them.

CA: Did they inquire specifically about laws pertaining to Republic of 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. Afterwards my presentation, we had a piffling lunch. That's possibly when I found out their interest in cuneiform tablets.

CA: The complaint says you lot sent a written report to Hobby Lobby on October 19, 2010. What was the purpose of that memo? Can yous provide us a copy of it?

PG: When I finished the presentation, the in firm counsel asked me to write up a summary. It took me a while to become to it. It summarized what I had presented, just at this point I had been enlightened they were thinking of acquiring things from Iraq and so made sure this was included in the memo.

Gerstenblith said she could not provide a re-create of her memo on the police, just the federal complaint quotes from it, in role, equally follows:

I would regard the acquisition of whatsoever artifact probable from Iraq (which could be described as Mesopotamian, Assyrian, Akkadian, Sumerian, Babylonian, Parthian, Sassanian and maybe other celebrated or cultural terms) as conveying considerable take a chance. An estimated 200-500,000 objects have been looted from archaeological sites in Iraq since the early 1990s; particularly pop on the market and probable to accept been looted are cylinder seals, cuneiform tablets . . . . Whatsoever object brought into the The states and with Iraq alleged equally land of origin has a loftier chance of being detained past US Customs. If such an object has been brought into the United states of america in the past few years and was not stopped by US Community, then y'all need to examine the import documents to see if the land of origin was properly declared; an improper announcement of country of origin tin besides lead to seizure and forfeiture of the object.

The complaint continues: "The Adept's memorandum farther brash Hobby Lobby that cultural property looted from Iraq since 1990 is specifically protected past import restrictions that carry criminal penalties and fines. The Expert's memorandum was received past In-house Counsel merely was non shared with Hobby Lobby'south 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 fifty-fifty laissez passer my advice on. I was surprised to acquire that in the complaint. Why did they both having me do this?  The memorandum I wrote was never circulated across in business firm legal counsel, and they were already in the process of acquiring these objects.

CA: Was there whatever follow-upwardly? Did they ask yous to review any specific cases or documents afterward that?

PG:My interest as an expert for Hobby Vestibule concluded after I gave them the memo. There was no follow-upward, 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 after did the very things y'all warned against. Do you think they used your advice to interruption the law rather than to follow it? In other words, do you feel used?

PG: I suppose one tin't rule that out. Which would exist 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 practice. I thought they would not want to do those things. I tin't rule out information technology was all the opposite…that they used my advice to evade the constabulary as opposed to follow the police."

CA: Many take asked: why were there no criminal charges in this example? As a law professor, what'due south your answer?

PG:At that place is a lot here that does read as a red flag. Aircraft boxes to diverse locations. Mislabeling cuneiform tablets as ceramic tiles. These take in many cases been the hallmarks of intentional violations of community laws.

Yes it looks like there was criminal activity, but its non clear who committed the crime. The government would have to prove criminal noesis beyond a reasonable dubiety. A jury would have to find that these people knew not only what the law was only also that they were responsible for how the stuff was falsely labeled when it was imported. I accept to presume 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 and then many people involved, they've created plausbile deniability as to who knew what.

CA: In your view, what deterrent effect do seizures similar 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 accept very little deterrent event. Virtually 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, non at all. Therefore, its not a deterrent. I have come to believe that criminal prosecution is the simply constructive deterrent. I'g not the just person who's made this comment.

beachumvisiong90.blogspot.com

Source: https://chasingaphrodite.com/tag/hobby-lobby/

Share this post