[CPProt.net] USA: Missing coins not reported to authorities

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

Missing coins not reported to authorities
Lack of alarm by Noe surprises some officials

By STEVE EDER
BLADE STAFF WRITER

May 8, 2005


EVERGREEN, Colo. - In the year since Tom Noe learned that 121 rare coins
bought with Ohio money were missing and possibly stolen in Colorado, he has
done several things.


He fired the manager suspected of the theft.

He asked a professional coin group to sanction the manager, which it did.

He dispatched a partner to Colorado to seize other coins.

He hired a forensic accountant to figure out how many coins were missing.
But there's one thing he hasn't done: Contacted law enforcement authorities.

And they're wondering why.

"What's frustrating to me is I'm getting information from so many other
people, but no legitimate victim … has ever called me with further
information or further concerns," said Jennifer Gilmore, an investigator for
the Jefferson County, Colo., sheriff's office.

"I get information from [The Blade] that there's 119 additional coins
missing, but no one has ever called us to make a report of it or to add this
to it. We would be more than happy to look into that for them."

An official at the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation - the agency that
gave Mr. Noe $50 million to buy rare coins as investments for the state -
said Friday the bureau also is concerned. A bureau spokesman said Mr. Noe
took almost a year before informing them - in an audit report - of the loss
of 119 of the coins.

And, the spokesman said, the state didn't learn until being informed by
Blade reporters in March that two additional gold coins also were missing,
two of the most valuable rare coins purchased for the state by an employee
of Mr. Noe's at a cost of $250,000.

"I can tell you that when we found out about the two coins that were
missing, it was only within the past few months and we were not at all
pleased that we were not made aware of the issue by Mr. Noe," said Jeremy
Jackson, spokesman for the bureau.

Little is known about Ohio's121 rare coins missing in Colorado, except for
the two gold pieces. One is a $3 gold coin minted in 1855 that was purchased
for $150,000. The other is a $10 gold coin minted in 1845 that was purchased
for $100,000.

Before their disappearance they were two of the rarest and most valuable
U.S. coins on the rare-coin market. The $3 gold piece is one of only two
known to exist. The $10 gold piece was purchased as part of a rare
three-coin proof set including the $10 coin, a $5 gold coin, and a $2 1/2
quarter-eagle gold coin, all minted in 1845.

They were purchased using Workers' Compensation money from a Boulder, Colo.,
coin dealer by Michael Storeim, hired by Mr. Noe to run Numismatic
Professionals. The firm is a Noe subsidiary funded with Ohio money to buy
and sell rare coins out of an office in Evergreen, Colo., where Mr. Storeim
lives.

Mr. Noe acknowledged on Friday that he has not contacted police about the
state's rare coins that went missing in October, 2003.

"We are finalizing a forensic accounting at this time, [and] when it's time,
we'll turn it over to the Colorado authorities," said the Maumee coin dealer
and prominent local Republican fund-raiser. "I think once we give them what
we have, it will make the investigation very easy. We're the experts in the
coin business and they are not."

Ohio's inspector general has launched an investigation into Mr. Noe's
rare-coin investments for the Bureau of Workers' Compensation. He is also
under investigation by the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department for allegedly
violating campaign finance laws involving contributions to President Bush's
re-election campaign.

To his co-workers, there was something suspicious about Mr. Storeim stepping
into a room by himself in October, 2003, to open an Express Mail package
containing a pair of gold coins, police records show.

On Oct. 27, 2003, about 90 minutes after the package arrived at the offices
of Numismatic Professionals, Mr. Storeim reported to the Jefferson County
Sheriff's Office that when he received the package it had been tampered with
and when he opened it the two coins were missing.

The coins were en route from being graded by Professional Coin Grading
Service in Newport Beach, Calif.

Despite Mr. Storeim's statements to sheriff's investigators that he is the
victim of a theft, colleagues aren't convinced that the 49-year-old coin
trader isn't the coin thief himself.

In a sworn deposition in May, 2004, Kevin Lipton, a Beverly Hills, Calif.,
coin dealer who partnered with Mr. Storeim to sell the missing $3 and $10
gold pieces along with the $2 1/2 and $5 gold coins, called Mr. Storeim
"underhanded" and "dishonest," while testifying that other Noe employees
alleged that Mr. Storeim had embezzled thousands of dollars from Mr. Noe's
company, which is funded by the state of Ohio.

Mr. Lipton gave the deposition to investigators for his insurance company,
Fireman's Fund Insurance Co., which was being asked to pay a claim on the
loss.

"If someone's a thief and then this happens at the same time; you know, if
it looks and smells, it usually is," Mr. Lipton said during his deposition.

Despite attempts by The Blade to seek an interview with Mr. Storeim at his
Colorado home and office, and through his attorney, the coin collector has
refused to comment about Mr. Lipton's allegations or about the missing Ohio
coins.

He released a statement last week through his attorney, Brian Jeffrey.

"Unfortunately, there is a civil dispute outstanding between Mr. Storeim and
Mr. Noe," Mr. Jeffrey wrote.

"We expect that this dispute will soon be resolved informally between the
parties, or will be presented to a court for resolution."

He added, "As you must know, there is more to this dispute than you are
hearing from Mr. Noe. We certainly take issue with the negative statements
Mr. Noe has made to the press regarding Mr. Storeim and look forward to
correcting them when the circumstances permit."

Mr. Noe hired Mr. Storeim to lead Numismatic Professionals, a coin
subsidiary funded by the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, the
organization that pays medical claims and provides income to workers injured
on the job. Since 1998, the bureau has invested $50 million in rare-coin
funds controlled by Mr. Noe, The Blade first reported last month.

Mr. Noe has told The Blade that he accepted Mr. Storeim's explanation that
the two gold coins were lost in the mail, but he has hired a forensic
accountant to examine the records of Numismatic Professionals.

Last August, after complaints by Mr. Noe and others, Mr. Storeim was
suspended from the Professional Numismatists Guild for violating the
organization's code of ethics.

In 2003, Mr. Storeim, who has been buying and selling rare coins most of his
adult life, purchased four gold coins for Numismatic Professionals - the two
missing coins plus the 1845 $2 1/2 gold coin and the 1845 $5 gold coin -
from a Boulder coin dealer for $535,000. Mr. Storeim's intention was to have
the coins regraded, and hopefully upgraded, and then resell them at a huge
profit.

In the rare-coin business, the grade of a coin is the basis of its value.
Longtime coin peddlers like Mr. Noe, Mr. Storeim, and Mr. Lipton make their
living by spotting rare coins for sale that they believe are undergraded.

They buy them, send them to one of several coin-grading firms in the
country, and hope the grading experts agree with them and give the coins a
higher-quality rating - or grade.

If that happens, a coin bought for a few hundred dollars may suddenly be
worth a few thousand dollars.

Or, in the case of the missing 1845 $10 gold piece, could jump in value from
the $100,000 Mr. Storeim paid for it to the $200,000 post-grading value he
told police it was worth.

Mr. Lipton, the Beverly Hills coin dealer, entered the picture in 2003 when
Mr. Storeim contacted him and proposed that he sell the four gold coins
purchased with Ohio money and they would split any profit "50-50."

Mr. Storeim had another motive. He wanted Mr. Lipton, who had better
insurance coverage, to insure the coins as they traveled back and forth in
the mail from dealer to grader. Mr. Lipton agreed during the telephone
conversation.

Mr. Lipton explained the arrangement in his deposition: "Basically, that
they would put up the money, because Numismatic Professionals has a lot of
capital from [Mr.] Noe, and I would assist in the marketing of the coins."

Mr. Lipton verified in his testimony that Mr. Storeim offered half the
profits to him if he could sell the coins. Plus, Mr. Lipton agreed to insure
the coins that would be shipped from the grader back to Mr. Storeim's office
in Evergreen. Mr. Storeim told Mr. Lipton he didn't have enough insurance to
cover the shipping of items with such high value at one time.

The four coins were sent in two installments. The first box, with the 1845
$2 1/2 gold coin and the $5 gold coin, arrived intact.

And a few days later, "I get a call saying, 'Oh my God, I opened up the
package and the coins - it was empty,'●" Mr. Lipton testified that Mr.
Storeim had told him.

Mr. Lipton filed a claim with his insurance company, which offered to pay
off the claim of $250,000, minus a $10,000 deductible.

But as suspicion intensified about Mr. Storeim's role in the disappearance
of the coins, Mr. Lipton said he declined to sign the necessary paperwork
with his insurance provider, which would have released the settlement to Tom
Noe and Numismatic Professionals.

Instead, as Mr. Lipton's insurance premiums rapidly rose, he told his
insurance company that he had heard from a co-worker of Mr. Storeim that the
Colorado coin dealer may have stolen the two gold coins himself.

"I just felt compelled, once I knew that this guy was a thief, that before I
signed my affidavit, that I was going to tell [the insurance company] to
stop and find out what was going on," he testified in his sworn deposition.

Mr. Lipton testified that he had been told by Richard Melamed, a coin dealer
working for Mr. Noe and Numismatic Professionals, that he had "red-handed
caught Storeim embezzling many thousands" from the company.

Mr. Melamed informed Mr. Lipton that he had serious concerns about Mr.
Storeim.

Mr. Lipton said Mr. Melamed uncovered the scheme on the company computer and
told Mr. Noe.

"[Mr. Melamed] started to begin to tell me in little bits and pieces about
the way Storeim was embezzling money from their company," Mr. Lipton
testified.

"He left a complete trail … He just thought everyone was an idiot. And I'm
sure Mr. Noe could give you a hundred different other details and ways he
stole from them."

Mr. Melamed told a Blade reporter Friday at a St. Louis coin show that he
would not talk about Mr. Storeim or Ohio's missing coins. "I have nothing to
say to you," he said.

With or without a police investigation into the missing coins, Mr. Storeim
has vehemently denied having anything to do with the disappearance of the
coins in 2003.

"I spoke to Storeim about it once, and he swears to me that, while he admits
to being a thief and doing all this other stuff, he swears that these coins
are a legitimate robbery or whatever it was," Mr. Lipton testified in his
deposition to lawyers for his insurance company. "I suggested to Storeim
that there were things he needed to do to prove that to people."

Those suggestions, he said, included taking a lie detector test.

"I said if he had safety deposit boxes anywhere in the world … like
Australia or Europe or anywhere else, he should let people know exactly
where they are, and they should be opened up with people there," Mr. Lipton
said.

There is an indication in the California coin dealer's testimony that Ohio's
two missing gold coins could be in Australia. He testified that co-workers
of Mr. Storeim were perplexed that he took a sudden trip to Australia,
saying he wanted to increase his sky miles.

But Mr. Lipton questioned why anyone - including Mr. Storeim - would steal
the rare coins.

"They're totally unsaleable because of their uniqueness," he said during the
deposition. "It's like stealing a Van Gogh painting. You can't sell it. It's
not an appropriate thing to steal."

They are the among the world's most valuable coins. Both coins have been
rated the absolute finest of their kind by the Professional Coin Grading
Service.

Both coins have finely finished, highly detailed mirror surfacing, and
neither was intended to enter circulation.

Considering the value of the coins and the amount of money at stake, both
the Jefferson County sheriff's investigator and Mr. Lipton were surprised at
the apparent lack of interest in recovering the coins shown by the people
most directly affected by the disappearance.

Mr. Lipton said he expected Mr. Storeim would be more aggressive in
providing updates about the missing coins.

"You know, I would have been calling every - if it was my money laid out,
I'd have been … on the phone to him every week, saying what's going on or
what's going forward."

Investigator Jennifer Gilmore said Mr. Storeim wasn't as concerned as other
victims.

"I will say he didn't call every day or every other day, or once a week as
victims do," she said.

"He called a few times. You always have victims that call every day."

During his deposition, Mr. Lipton said he expected Mr. Noe to contact police
about investigating potential criminal activity because it was his money
that was used to purchase the coins.

"Tom Noe and I discussed it, and you know, his view is kind of like it will
all work itself out and just see what happens," Mr. Lipton said in his
deposition.

When asked if he had contacted the sheriff or postal inspector about the
missing coins, Mr. Lipton replied: "I have not. I assumed that Noe would do
that."

Even though Mr. Noe has not contacted Colorado law enforcement authorities
about Ohio's 121 missing coins, The Blade has learned that they contacted
him.

Ms. Gilmore, the Jefferson County sheriff's investigator, said last week
that after calls from the newspaper and from officials from the Ohio Bureau
of Workers' Compensation in the past month, she called Mr. Noe.

"[Mr. Noe] said, 'I don't want to talk to you, talk to my attorney,'" Ms.
Gilmore said.

Blade staff writers James Drew, Mike Wilkinson, and Christopher Kirkpatrick
contributed to this report

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