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July 3, 1999
CONTENTS:
- After Global Search, FBI Finds Stolen T.Rex Jawbone
- Official in Ruby Ridge siege to track stolen artwork
- Original key to the Bastille stolen from Sydney wax museum
- Rothschilds to sell art Nazis looted
After Global Search, FBI Finds Stolen T.Rex Jawbone
12:53 a.m. Jul 03, 1999 Eastern
By Roz Davidson
BERKELEY, Calif. (Reuters) - A priceless Tyrannosaurus rex jawbone stolen in 1994 from a California university has been recovered following an international search that uncovered skullduggery in the global fossil trade, officials announced Friday.
FBI agents and scientists proudly unveiled the foot-long, 68 million-year-old jawbone -- complete with three teeth -- which were tracked down through a European dealer.
``It's a great story, and we're thrilled to have it back,'' said Mark Goodwin, principal scientist at the paleontology museum of the University of California-Berkeley.
``This specimen is very distinct, in part because it is well preserved. And there are not a lot of T.rex specimens around,'' he added. The fossilized jawbone, which is one of the most perfectly preserved fossils of the giant dinosaur ever found, was originally unearthed by Berkeley paleontologists working in Montana in 1986. It was returned to Berkeley, site of the world's largest university collection of fossils, and stored in a drawer accessible to researchers.
In late 1994, Goodwin noticed that the jawbone had vanished from its drawer -- setting in motion a detective saga that eventually stretched all the way to Europe. Goodwin said he was initially careful not to raise the alarm about the missing fossil too loudly. While it was always possible that the jawbone had simply been misplaced, he said he feared that if it had been stolen, a public alert would simply drive the thief -- and the fossil -- underground.
``Like stolen art, the fossil would have disappeared, for however long, until things cooled off,'' he said. In 1997 a colleague of Goodwin spotted a replica of the missing fossil in a private museum in Wyoming. Later, another copy of the jawbone was spotted in a fossil catalog.
``This confirmed for me that the original was still out there someplace. Someone had the original, and was making replicas for sale,'' Goodwin said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation was called in on the case because the missing jawbone was technically federal property because it was recovered from federal land, said Bruce Gephardt, special agent in charge of the FBI's San Francisco office.
Agents tracked the fossil market in both Germany and Belgium, working with local authorities, before they eventually found the missing piece of the T.rex, he said. Because the investigation is still active, he declined to provide any more details.
No official suspects have been named in the case, which could involve charges of theft and transport of government property. And Gephardt indicated that agents were working hard to uncover more dirt about the fossil trade.
David Lindberg, the director of the University of California Museum of Paleontology, said the booming economy has led to rapid growth in the commercial fossil market, and that theft -- though still rare -- is on the upswing.
While researchers say well-preserved fossils are essentially priceless, a market for them definitely exists. In 1997, a full T.rex skeleton was sold at Sotheby's auction house in New York for $8 million.
At the Berkeley museum, which houses more than 20 million fossils, only a handful are listed as missing. But Lindberg said specimens like the T.rex jawbone were likely to attract more attention by collectors. ``This fossil does not belong to one individual, it belongs to all of us,'' Lindberg said. ``They are not going to be making any more T.rex jaws.''
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.
Official in Ruby Ridge siege to track stolen artwork
Associated Press -
BOSTON -- The ex-FBI deputy director who was involved in the Ruby Ridge siege of white separatist Randy Weaver has been hired by a Boston museum to help recover millions of dollars in artwork stolen nine years ago.
Larry Potts, at one time FBI Director Louis Freeh's handpicked deputy and head of the bureau's criminal division, was hired by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in April to find the 13 pieces of art, valued as high as $300 million. Included are paintings by Rembrandt and Vermeer.
Potts, vice president of Investigative Group International in Washington, D.C., already has contacted a person he believes crucial to any recovery effort.
Last month, he wrote a letter to imprisoned antiques dealer William P. Youngworth III, asking for his help and calling him the key to cracking the case.
The letter was obtained by the Boston Globe. Youngworth is serving a two-year sentence in a Massachusetts prison for a crime unrelated to the art theft. In his reply to Potts, he agreed to help -- for a price.
"Yes, I would be delighted to help you and the Gardner Museum recover their former property," Youngworth wrote on June 21. "Kindly remit 50 million dollars U.S. and a signed immunity agreement issued by the Attorney General of the United States."
In a statement released this week, he was more conciliatory. He praised the museum for hiring Potts and for contacting him directly rather than through federal authorities.
But he did not say if he would cooperate.
Two years ago, Youngworth said he could help the museum recover the art stolen in March 1990.
In return, he wanted the $5 million reward offered by the museum, immunity from prosecution and early release from prison for his friend, Myles J. Connor Jr., a convicted art thief who was serving time in federal prison. Connor once arranged the return of a stolen Rembrandt.
Youngworth and Connor were both in custody when the art was stolen from the museum.
Potts retired from the FBI in 1997 after being placed on administrative leave while his role in the deadly 1992 Ruby Ridge siege was investigated. The Justice Department declined to prosecute him, saying it had insufficient evidence to support obstruction of justice charges for allegedly destroying a post-confrontation critique.
Weaver's 14-year-old son and Deputy U.S. Marshal William Degan were killed in a gunfight that ignited the siege. Weaver's wife, Vicki, was fatally shot later.
Original key to the Bastille stolen from Sydney wax museum
Copyright c 1999 Nando Media
Copyright c 1999 Associated Press
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latest:
the key has been returned.
T.C.
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SYDNEY, Australia (July 2, 1999 10:52 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - An original key to the Bastille prison, a treasure from the French Revolution, was stolen from an exhibition in Sydney, authorities said Friday.
The Madame Tussaud wax museum has offered a reward for the recovery of the cast-iron key, which disappeared last Saturday. "I felt sick when I heard the news from a guard," Vicky Brown, Madame Tussaud's general manager said. "It's not something you expect to get stolen."
She said the key was worth about $4,000, but its real value was as a historical artifact.
The key was collected by wax museum founder Marie Tussaud herself the day after the people of Paris stormed the Bastille prison on July 14, 1789, launching the French Revolution that toppled King Louis XVI and the French aristocracy.
In two weeks, France will celebrate the 210th anniversary of the French Revolution.
"Clearly we hope it can be found and that its theft is only a prank in the lead-up to Bastille Day," said Frederic Paruta, a spokesman for the French Consul General in Sydney.
The museum waited six days before announcing the theft to allow a thorough investigation, Brown said, adding that she is convinced the theft was an outside job.
The key is about 10 inches long, weighs more than four pounds and has a distinctive crucifix cut out of its wrought iron work. Madame Tussaud's began a touring exhibition of Australia two years ago. It is due to leave for Southeast Asia on July 18. Madame Tussaud was among the prisoners at the Bastille for a while, sharing a cell with the future Empress Josephine.
(Times of London) Rothschilds to sell art Nazis looted
BY ROBIN YOUNG
TREASURES worth more than UKP.20 million confiscated by the Nazis from the Rothschild family are to be sold at Christie's next week. It is the most important single-owner collection to have come on the London market.
The fabulous collection, returned to the family early this year by the Austrian Government, which had retained it in Vienna's state museums after the Second World War, includes three portraits by Frans Hals and a Louis XVI commode that was commissioned by the King and kept in his library at Versailles.
Even the Rothschild family prayer book is estimated to fetch some UKP.3 million. A masterpiece of Renaissance art, it is a Book of Hours in Latin with 67 full-page and miniature illustrations by Simon Bening and others. Another 16th-century volume, the Cornaro Missal, is expected to realise between UKP.150,000 and UKP.200,000. The collection was formed by Baron Nathaniel Rothschild, who died childless in 1905, passing ownership to his brother and fellow collector, Baron Albert, who on his death in 1911 passed it to his sons. But within hours of the German Anschluss with Austria in 1938, the treasures were seized by the German Reich. During the war the collection was stored in salt mines and it was returned to the heirs of Baron Alphone von Rothschild only this year, as a result of legislation in November.
The collection has been sent for sale, with the exception of a few mementoes, because the family no longer has the palatial homes in which to display it. A spokesman for Christie's said yesterday: "All our experts are thrilled, because this is the most important sale we have handled in the last ten years."
The three Hals portraits are led by a striking image of an Amsterdam merchant, Tieleman Roosterman, estimated at UKP.2.5 million to UKP.3.5 million. Alexander Hope, Christie's old master paintings expert, said it was expected to fetch more than the others because of its particular appeal to modern taste. The second, a portrait of an anonymous gentleman, has an estimate of UKP.1.2 million to UKP.1.8 million and the third, of a woman in a black dress with white collar and ruffs, for which, Mr Hope says, some collectors have already expressed a preference, is estimated at UKP.800,000 to UKP.1.2 million. But Mr Hope added that his own choice would be a large wooded evening landscape by Jan Wynants, estimated at UKP.300,000, but which, he predicts, will shatter the world record for the artist's work. Other items among the 250 lots include rare Persian carpets, musical instruments, scientific and horological instruments, arms and armour, silver, porcelain and glass. "In the 19th century the Rothschilds were unrivalled as collectors," said Mr Hope. "Their history is only rivalled by dynasties like the Habsburgs and the Bourbons."
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