[CPProt.net] Italy presses convicted dealer in efforts to recover artifacts from U.S. museums, lawyers say

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Italy presses convicted dealer in efforts to recover artifacts from U.S.
museums, lawyers say
By Frances D'Emilio, Associated Press Writer  |  November 8, 2005

ROME --A Rome prosecutor has been pressing a convicted Italian antiques
dealer to testify in a trial tied to Italy's efforts to recover precious
artifacts from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and other top U.S. museums,
defense lawyers said.

Prosecutor Paolo Ferri also sought testimony from another art world dealer,
Robert Hecht, an elderly American who is on trial along with Marion True,
the recently resigned curator of the J. Paul Getty Museum, another lawyer
said Tuesday.

The trial of True and Hecht began in July, but was immediately postponed
until Nov. 16. The case grew out of an Italian probe into the often murky
world of international dealing in antiquities.

Both defendants have denied wrongdoing, and Getty officials have defended
True's work.

In a separate trial last year, a Rome judge convicted Italian dealer Giacomo
Medici of conspiracy in international trafficking in antiquities and
sentenced him to 10 years in prison.

Ferri "has always tried to see if Mr. Medici in all these years wanted to
cooperate," said Susanna Spafford, who was part of Medici's trial defense
team.

"Medici always said the he didn't sell all those pieces to the Getty or to
the Met or to other American museums, so he cannot do anything to help Mr.
Ferri to get things back," Spafford said Tuesday.

In a telephone conversation, Ferri appeared to suggest that Italian
authorities were hoping Medici would change his mind, or that True or Hecht
might cooperate, even as their trial resumes.

"The possibility of reducing a sentence by one-third to two-thirds exists
all the way through the appeals process" in exchange for cooperation in
getting antiquities back, Ferri said.

In Italy, a conviction is not considered final until two levels of appeals
are exhausted.

Medici is free pending the outcome of an appeal.

Ferri declined to describe any overtures the prosecution might have made to
defendants or any response from them.

Spafford said Medici has not received any summons to testify at True's
trial.

The Metropolitan has said that it offered to discuss the works that have
raised Italy's concern, but that no meeting has been scheduled.

Hecht was asked once by Ferri if he would testify in efforts against the
museums and turned him down, said Alessandro Vannucci, the defendant's
lawyer.

Ferri "asked everybody, including Medici, for collaboration," Vannucci said.
The prosecutor "always said that these requests were made to regain the
pieces," the lawyer told The Associated Press.

"If it had come out, had been proven, that a piece sold to the Metropolitan
or to the J. Paul Getty was of illegal provenance, taken from Italy, if
someone admits that," the prosecutor could make his case for the object's
return, Vannucci said.

Spafford said: "From what I witnessed in these kinds of proposals,
constantly made, it was clear that Ferri's purpose was to get back the most
important pieces from the American museums."

The names of several renowned museums have been mentioned in news reports on
the case, which began 10 years ago when police found photographs of objects
they deemed to be of uncertain origin in Medici's office in Geneva,
Switzerland.

Medici has insisted he amassed the photos to help him monitor the
antiquities market.

The Boston Globe has reported that a few of the photos showed a statue, a
vase and a jar, now owned by Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.

The museum "is in the process of contacting" Italian authorities, said Dawn
Griffin, director of public relations for the Boston museum. "We haven't
heard from them yet."

She said the emergence of Hecht's name in the Italian probe "led us to look
more closely" at a museum data base of its collection.

"We knew we had purchased things from Hecht. We obviously saw the red flag,"
Griffin told The Associated Press in Rome.

Griffin referred to a museum statement last week which said that, if the
museum "were to discover that an object in our collection had been stolen,
we would return it to its rightful owner, consistent with the policy and
practice of the museum."

Italian law dating back to the 1930s stipulates that any antiquity found in
Italy belongs to the Italian state.

An attorney for the Italian state, Maurizio Fiorilli, accompanied by an
officer from Italy's paramilitary anti-art theft police division, was in Los
Angeles on Tuesday to bring back the ancient works that the Getty decided to
return, police and Culture Ministry officials said.

The objects -- a drinking cup from the ancient city of Paestum, near Naples;
ancient Greek funerary inscription from Sicily, and a bronze candelabrum
from the Etruscan world -- were expected back in Italy on Thursday, ministry
officials said.

The Getty "is donating, not giving back" the objects, said Giuseppe
Proietti, a top ministry official.

Proietti said he believed the Getty was doing so in a bid to head off
possible confiscation by authorities in Los Angeles.

The U.S. attorney's office last year filed a complaint alleging that the
Greek vessel was stolen property belonging to Italy.

Getty agreed to return the object to settle the litigation. The other two
objects were being returned based on evidence presented by the Italian
government, Getty officials have said. 

http://www.boston.com/