[MSN] Greek Court Dismisses Case Against Ex-Curator

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Greek Court Dismisses Case Against Ex-Curator
November 28, 2007
By ANTHEE CARASSAVA 
<http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=ANTHEE%20CARASSAVA&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=ANTHEE%20CARASSAVA&inline=nyt-per>

ATHENS, Nov. 27 — An appeals court here dismissed a criminal case on 
Tuesday against Marion True, a former curator for the J. Paul Getty 
Museum 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/g/getty_j_paul_museum/index.html?inline=nyt-org> 
in Los Angeles who had been accused of conspiring to acquire an ancient 
gold wreath that Greece says was looted from its soil.

The unanimous decision by the three-member appeals court came eight 
months after the Getty formally handed over the disputed funerary wreath 
and a week after Ms. True’s lawyer filed a motion for dismissal.

In his motion the lawyer, Yannis Yannides, cited a California state law 
that sets a three-year statute of limitations for prosecutions once the 
whereabouts of a stolen artifact have been established. (The Getty 
bought the wreath in 1993 for $1.15 million.)

In dismissing the charges, the appeals court appeared to accept his 
argument that Greek law requires its courts to defer to the statute of 
limitations in the country where the acquisition was made known.

Mr. Yannides said: “The rule of law was applied. That’s all we wanted. 
That’s all we asked for. This may not be a legal triumph, but it brings 
significant closure to my client.”

Ms. True has been on trial since late 2005 in Italy on similar charges 
of conspiring to acquire illicitly excavated antiquities. She has denied 
the charges in both cases and did not attend Tuesday’s hearing here.

The threat of criminal prosecution has emerged as a crucial tool for 
archaeologically rich countries as they press American museums for the 
handover of artifacts acquired in recent decades.

Prosecutors in Italy and Greece have generally asserted that the 
criminal cases and the drive to reclaim objects are independent of each 
other. Still, they concede that their strategies are interrelated. 
Christos Koumbis, a state prosecutor, disclosed for the first time on 
Tuesday that he had recommended that the charges be dropped. If “the 
wreath had not been returned, then we may have decided differently,” he 
said in a brief interview. Greek Culture Ministry officials declined to 
comment on the outcome of the case.

In August the Getty agreed to return 40 ancient treasures to Italy after 
long and contentious negotiations. The criminal charges against Ms. True 
remain in effect there, although related civil charges were dropped in 
August.

The wreath is believed to have been unearthed about 15 years ago. Greece 
first laid claim to it in the mid-1990s, although its precise site of 
excavation was not yet known. Last year, however, its government sent 
the Getty a dossier of evidence, including documents and photographs, to 
support its claim that the wreath had been illegally removed from 
northern Greece and passed on to a market through Germany and 
Switzerland before being sold to the Getty in 1993 for $1.1 million.

The deal to return the wreath and a fourth-century B.C. kore, or statue 
of a young woman, was brokered last December. In July of last year, the 
Getty also acceded to Greece’s request that it return a large stele, or 
grave marker, it acquired in 1993 and a small marble relief bought by 
the museum’s founder, the oil magnate J. Paul Getty, in 1955.

Ms. True would have faced up to 10 years in prison if she had been tried 
and found guilty of receiving a stolen artifact. She still faces lesser 
charges related to at least 29 unregistered antiquities that were found 
in her summer villa on the Greek island of Paros during a police raid 
last year.

Her lawyers have said that the objects were there before she bought the 
property in 1996 and that the charges are a form of harassment.

Ms. True was the Getty’s chief antiquities curator from 1986 to 2005. 
She resigned the post in October 2005 over what the museum said was an 
impropriety related to the 1996 purchase of the villa on Paros.

The Los Angeles Times reported then that Ms. True had used a lawyer 
recommended by the London antiquities dealer Christo Michailidis to 
arrange a real estate loan for the house the previous year.

Under Getty policy, such a loan would have posed a conflict of interest, 
because he was a close associate of another dealer with whom the Getty 
did business.

Harry Stang, Ms. True’s lawyer in Los Angeles, said she was gratified by 
the appeals court’s decision on Tuesday. “She was pleased that the court 
ruled as it did on her Greek counselor’s motion,” he said. “She was 
fully prepared if necessary to defend the case on the merits.”

“While we’re all very pleased that the Greek law was properly applied 
with respect to the statute of limitations,” he added, “it also should 
be noted that at no time during these proceedings have the Greek 
prosecutors provided any evidence as to the existence of a crime.”

A spokesman for the Getty, Ron Hartwig, said the museum was “pleased 
that the charges against Marion True have been dismissed.”

The wreath is now on view in an archaeological museum in Salonika, Greece.

Randy Kennedy contributed reporting from New York.

http://www.nytimes.com