The Medici Conspiracy (49 page)

He wrote to Koch, asking which New York dealer possessed the Stockholm piece in 1986. Koch replied that he didn't know, and that the information about the object being on the New York market in that year had actually been added to the catalog manuscript by Karol Wight of the Getty, who edited the manuscript. According to Koch, the Getty had been offered the piece but had declined.

Given this information, Lunden e-mailed Karol Wight, introduced himself, and asked if she could help him with the identity of the dealer in New York who possessed the Stockholm relief in 1986.

Then something very odd happened. He got an e-mail in return later that day, but it wasn't from Karol Wight and it wasn't meant for him.

It was from Marion True, and it read:

A few hours later, Lunden heard from Karol Wight, who said that “they” (the Getty's Antiquities Department) were looking into his request. Five days after that, Karol Wight wrote again, to say that she had to consult Marion True, who was out of town. Then, on March 9, she wrote a third time to say that Marion True did not want to release the information, “to protect the confidentiality of the dealer and our relationship with them.”

Lunden pressed her as to why the information was being withheld—was it the museum's general policy or was there something “special”
about this case. She replied, “I think I'd have to put this in a ‘special' category.” Lunden pressed her again: “One wonders if these ‘non-public' [dealers] are hiding something? Are these people not reputable dealers?”

Wight replied: “Well, I think you've hit the nail on the head (to use an old expression) regarding the nature of dealers. Some are very public and appreciate recognition, others are not, usually because they've got something to hide or an unsavory past. This dealer had a spot of trouble in the past and prefers to keep a low profile with his arrangements.”

What happened here? Following Lunden's original e-mail, Wight must have contacted Marion True, who replied to her via e-mail, but somehow he received a communication never meant for his eyes.

In January 2002, Frederick H. Schultz Jr. appeared before the South District Court of New York, charged with conspiracy, and receiving and dealing in stolen antiquities. His appearance was a sensation for three reasons. In the first place, he was not just any antiquities dealer—until 2000, when he had been indicted, he was president of the National Association of Dealers in Ancient, Oriental and Primitive Art, arguably the most powerful individual in the antiquities world, a man who had advised the U.S. government on its policy toward the heritage of other nations. The NADAOPA has been active for more than twenty-five years in representing the interests of dealers, particularly in opposing U.S. ratification and implementation of the 1970 UNESCO convention.

The second reason for the sensational nature of the trial was Mr. Schultz's partner in crime, a man who had smuggled countless looted objects out of Egypt. Jonathan Tokely-Parry was an English restorer with a made-up name (he was christened Jonathan Foreman), who referred to himself in correspondence with Schultz as “006½” and called the other man “004½.” Tokely-Parry's smuggling technique was to cover stone or terra-cotta antiquities in liquid plastic and paint them garish colors so that they looked like modern tourist trinkets. The Englishman's own trial in London in 1997 had itself been a sensational affair, with witnesses being threatened and with the defendant himself taking hemlock at one stage and having to be hospitalized, so that proceedings were delayed. Eventually,
however, he was convicted of the dishonest handling of antiquities and given a six-year jail term.

But the most important aspect of the Schultz trial was the verdict. Having been indicted in July 2001, he filed a motion to dismiss the government's prosecution, essentially on the grounds that it did not accord with U.S. law and that the Egyptian law that had been contravened was not really an ownership law. According to an amicus curiae brief submitted to the U.S. court by Christie's, the National Association of Dealers in Ancient, Oriental and Primitive Art, and the Art Dealers Association of America, “This indictment has sent shock waves through the art world.... The inevitable effect of subjecting U.S. citizens to the risk of imprisonment for violating foreign patrimony laws is that dealers, collectors and museums will be forced to abandon the trade and collection of any objects that any foreign government may unilaterally claim as its ‘cultural patrimony.'”

In early January 2002, however, the U.S. court issued a landmark decision, ruling that foreign governments
do
own even undiscovered antiquities, provided they have laws such as Egypt has. That ruling meant that, in this case, unprovenanced antiquities that left Egypt since 1983 are, in the eyes of U.S. law, stolen. And importing stolen goods into the United States contravenes Section 2315 of the U.S. Penal Code. Since the court's ruling, at least one major country now accepts that objects looted and smuggled from countries with strict heritage laws are, in effect, stolen property. The organization that Schultz led succeeded for years in holding up U.S. endorsement of the 1970 UNESCO protocol that outlawed dealing in unprovenanced antiquities. Where the United States leads, other countries are sure to follow.

Moreover, at the end of the case, the judge gave the jury some instructions that are of particular interest. Schultz had claimed in his defense that the government had failed to prove that he knew or believed that he was engaging in theft. The judge took care to instruct the jury that

In other words a sophisticated antiquities dealer cannot profess ignorance of the laws of the countries whence the objects he deals in originate.

Schultz was found guilty and in June 2002 was fined $50,000 and sentenced to thirty-three months in prison. The judge made one other comment worth recording. He said that sophisticated defendants such as Schultz were not deterred by fines and so a prison sentence formed the main part of the penalty. That verdict and penalty were upheld on appeal. Schultz left prison in December 2005.

So far as we know, Schultz was only on the edge of the Medici-Hecht cordata. It will be remembered from Chapter 15, on the matter of the orphans, that he provided one fragment of the krater by the Berlin Painter that was acquired by the Getty. The others were provided by Robin Symes, Frida Tchacos, and Dietrich von Bothmer.

In July 2002, Raffaele Monticelli, who, according to Pasquale Camera's organigram was a member of Becchina's cordata, was found guilty of conspiracy at the Foggia tribunal and sentenced to four years. In some ways, the dating of the verdict was appropriate. It came a few days before Roberto Conforti, now a general, retired, on his sixty-fifth birthday. His strategy of putting pressure on the lesser lights first was beginning to have an effect.

The Monticelli trial was notable for the many phone taps that were presented as evidence. Tomb robbers are usually extremely cagey on the phone, but the Carabinieri are patient and, just occasionally, the tombaroli let their guard slip. The following transcripts are not just vivid; they help remove any doubt about the scale of the looting and the quality of the discoveries. Among the taps presented in court was this exchange between
Orazio Di Simone
^af
and his capo zona for the Naples region, Francesco Liberatore. At first, like a lot of transcripts of phone taps, it didn't make sense, but then it leaped into life. Apparently, the tombaroli in Campania were having problems and Liberatore was sent in to help sort it out.

The other exchange is between Monticelli himself and Benedetto D'Aniello, of Campania.