The former archivist at The Mariners' Museum in Newport News, Virginia who stole thousands of museum documents and sold them on the Internet was sentenced Wednesday to four years in prison.
Lester F. Weber sold at least 3,500 documents — from collections he was supposed to oversee — on eBay under his wife's name. The items included everything from brochures and boarding passes for old ships to a lawsuit against the company that owned the Titanic.
During sentencing, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith stated, "What stands out about this case was not only the 'surreptitious and dishonest' manner of the crime, but also the repetitive nature of it over a long period of time. You did this ... because of your greed and furthering your own pocketbook.
Weber was previously ordered to pay the museum the $172,357 he made on the sales. Smith also sentenced Weber's wife, Lori E. Childs, to 15 months in prison for filing a false tax return. She pleaded guilty in September.
Details are available at http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-local_museum_1218dec18,0,6554694.story.
This is always a concern of collectors - without a clear provenance you can't be sure you are getting something that the museum was selling legally (many museums raise money by selling duplicate artifacts or ones that do not enhance their collections) or that someone has stolen and is not known to be missing because it is a duplicate. Unfortunately, according to the article: "The museum recovered nine of 12 stolen items from a Titanic collection, but most of the 3,500 documents are still missing." Hopefully, they can track more down using eBay rcords, but they may have been sold several times since then. The theft was apparently discovered when a Swiss collector looked at his document with an infrared light and then did some online investigating before contacting the museum. Genealogically speaking, the clue that tipped him off was an obituary.
Posted by: Randy | December 19, 2008 at 03:01 PM
No wonder I have so much trouble getting info about my ggg grandfather who was a ship captain! What a horrifying thing to do. I have had people sell me photos of my family for practically nothing- all legal. But I saw a man at an auction who had a huge notebook full of photos with people's names on them and he wanted $150,000 for the collection. If I knew his name I would have a little chat with him! Sue
Posted by: sue maxwell | December 19, 2008 at 08:22 PM