[CPProt.net] USA: Art dealer found guilty. Signature sought for false affidavit

[Museum Security Network / Cultural Property Protection Net (Ton Cremers)]

Art dealer found guilty 
Signature sought for false affidavit
By GINA BARTON
gbarton at journalsentinel.com
Posted: April 8, 2005
Whitefish Bay art dealer Marilyn Karos has pleaded guilty to a federal
charge of obstruction of justice. It is her second criminal conviction
arising out of a saga of stolen artifacts from Rome.

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Karos, 63, entered the plea this week in federal court in Milwaukee. She
faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and $10,000 in fines when she
is sentenced July 14. However, under parameters set out in a plea agreement
and federal sentencing guidelines, she will likely receive a sentence of 10
to 16 months in prison.

In January 2001, Karos pleaded guilty to one count of receiving and
possessing stolen property in connection with the case. She served seven
months in prison on that charge. 

The case began in 1985, when a man who owed Karos money instead gave her
stolen artifacts with a total value of between $300,000 and $450,000. 

Prosecutors say Karos did some research and realized the items were stolen. 

Later, a man named Zakria El-Shafei agreed to sell the items on consignment
for Karos. When Karos learned that El-Shafei had pawned one of the items,
she lured him to the basement of her house, where Chicago-area antiques
dealer Richard O'Hara and two other men beat him, according to court
records.

At a jury trial in 2001, O'Hara was convicted of two felonies. He was
sentenced to 10 years in prison. The severity of the punishment was due, in
part, to evidence that O'Hara hit El-Shafei with a baseball bat and
threatened to inject something into the belly of El-Shafei's pregnant wife. 

Karos' latest conviction stems from an attempt to get O'Hara out of prison
on appeal, according to court records. 

Karos asked James Kosi - another of the men who had been in the basement -
to help O'Hara by signing a false affidavit, the records say. Karos also
offered Kosi $56,000 to sign the affidavit, which stated that O'Hara did not
threaten El-Shafei's wife.

The 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied O'Hara's appeal, and he remains
in custody. Kosi cooperated with the FBI in the new case against Karos,
according to the records.



>From the April 9, 2005, editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 

http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/apr05/316785.asp