[Tlc] FW: LA Art Museums - raided - did you hear about this

[Michael Montesano]

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Authorities Raid California Museums
By GREG RISLING 

 

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Federal agents raided several Southern California
museums on Thursday in search of Southeast Asian antiquities believed to
have been illegally obtained, smuggled into the U.S. and donated so
collectors could claim fraudulent tax deductions. 

Agents also investigated American Indian artifacts at one museum. 

Search warrants were executed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena and
the Mingei International Museum in San Diego, said Virginia Kice, a
spokeswoman with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

Authorities said no arrests had been made and no charges had been filed.


Court documents portray a five-year scheme in which the owner of a Los
Angeles art gallery worked with a smuggler to bring in artifacts from
Thailand and China, offered them as charitable contributions and then
tried to claim the donations as tax write-offs by boosting their value.
In some cases, museum officials initially questioned how the artifacts
were obtained but eventually accepted them, according to affidavits
filed in support of the search. 

The investigation is the latest public relations debacle for museums in
the United States that have been accused by foreign governments of
housing treasures stolen from their countries. Italy has been
negotiating with various museums, including the Metropolitan Museum in
New York and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, to have various
statues, vases and other items from Roman and Greek times returned. 

Michael Govan, director and chief executive officer of LACMA, estimated
about 60 items donated to the museum over the past decade that have come
under suspicion. 

``They were seemingly quite regular objects to be gifted,'' Govan said,
adding the museum is cooperating with the investigation. ``They came
from sources who were members of the museum for many years and regular
donors, so no, there was no reason for the museum to know ahead of
time.'' 

Mingei director Rob Sidner said the museum was cooperating fully with
the investigation. 

``If the results of the investigation show that these objects were
improperly donated and - we were assured they were acquired properly -
they will be returned to their rightful owner,'' Sidner said in a
statement. 

Representatives from the Pacific Asia museum did not immediately respond
to phone calls seeking comment. 

A statement from the Bowers Museum said items on display from El Malpais
National Monument and Chaco Culture Historic Park in New Mexico were
being examined by agents as to whether they were removed without a
permit. Items from the Ban Chiang area in Thailand also were being
reviewed. 

All of the artifacts will remain at the museums, said Thom Mrozek, a
spokesman with the U.S. attorney's office. 

The warrants stem from an undercover investigation by a National Park
Service special agent who posed as a collector interested in various
artifacts. The agent targeted Robert Olson, who is alleged in an
affidavit to be a smuggler, and Jonathan Markell, who co-owns an Asian
art gallery in Los Angeles with his wife. 

The agent said the artifacts passed through U.S. customs because they
had ``Made in Thailand'' labels affixed to them, making it appear they
were replicas. Olson, 79, allegedly boasted to the agent he had more
item from the Ban Chiang area than Thailand itself, according to an
affidavit. 

Court documents said Olson, Markell and the agent met more than a dozen
times and regularly e-mailed and called one another about the ``sale,
importation, and donation of stolen archaeological resources from China
and Thailand and antiquities illegally imported from Burma.'' Some of
the calls and meetings were recorded, the warrants said. 

In the case of the Pacific Asian Museum, Markell, 62, and the agent met
with museum staffers in March 2006 to donate items recovered from the
Ban Chiang culture in northeast Thailand. Two museum officials
questioned the agent about how one of the artifacts was obtained. After
Markell assured them that the Thai government wouldn't miss the item
because it wasn't ``an earth-shattering piece,'' the museum accepted the
donation, the documents said. 

Investigators also searched Markell's gallery and home. A phone and
e-mail message left for Markell wasn't immediately returned. A call to a
phone listed as Olson's went unanswered. 

The warrants also detail a relatively simple scam in which Markell
allegedly sold antiquities worth a few hundred dollars at a markup to
the undercover agent and then used false appraisals to increase the
value of the pieces to just less than $5,000 - the Internal Revenue
Service's floor for requiring written appraisals to support tax
deductions on donated art. 

At the Mingei in San Diego, museum officials accepted five Ban Chiang
ceramic vessels, along with two other pieces, in June 2006. The
undercover agent allegedly paid $1,500 to Markell, who declared a value
of nearly $5,000 to the museum, according to the warrants. 

Markell allegedly sent an e-mail to Sidner claiming that his Ban Chiang
pieces had come from a now-deceased former curator at the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art, and were all imported before Thai export
restrictions went into effect. 

Olson allegedly told the agent that he was being sent Ban Chiang
antiquities as they were being dug up in northeast Thailand, in
violation of Thai and international law. 

It was unclear in court documents whether Mingei officials were aware of
the provenance of the artifacts it accepted. 

With the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Markell allegedly told the
agent he lied to museum officials so they would accept his items. He
allegedly also indicated museum officials had found a ``loophole'' to
import restriction on some items but couldn't elaborate. 

According to the court documents, the agent who worked with Markell said
he didn't seem worried about being caught. The agent said that after
providing Markell a news article about someone getting arrested for
false tax returns dealing with antiquities, the dealer shrugged it off
and laughed. 

The documents quoted Markell as saying that ``people who had been caught
had to have done something stupid.'' 

Associated Press writers Gillian Flaccus in Santa Ana and Allison
Hoffman in San Diego contributed to this report. 


01/24/08 21:49 (c) Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
The information contained In this news report may not be published,
broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority
of The Associated Press.





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