[MSN] Antiquities Trial in Rome Focuses on a London Dealer Robin Symes

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

March 30, 2006
Antiquities Trial in Rome Focuses on a London Dealer 
By HUGH EAKIN and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

ROME, March 29 - The activities of Robin Symes, a London antiquities dealer
who has done business with many of the world's top collectors, came into
sharp focus on Wednesday at the trial of Marion True, a former curator at
the J. Paul Getty Museum, and Robert Hecht, an American dealer.

In a case that has had wide repercussions for museum collecting, Ms. True
and Mr. Hecht are charged with trafficking in objects that officials here
contend were illegally removed from Italian soil.

In more than four hours of testimony, Peter Watson, a British investigative
journalist who is a witness for the prosecution, detailed what he said was
Mr. Symes's elaborate use of offshore companies and warehouses to buy and
sell ancient artworks. Italians contend that some of these works were
illegally excavated and exported.

Mr. Symes has not been charged in the case, but Italian prosecutors have
been investigating his ties to Ms. True, Mr. Hecht and Giacomo Medici, an
Italian art dealer and co-defendant in the case, who has already been
convicted.

During Ms. True's tenure, the Getty bought millions of dollars' worth of
antiquities from Mr. Symes, and Mr. Watson suggested in his testimony that
the two became social friends. At one point, the prosecution showed a
photograph of a youthful Ms. True with Christo Michailidis, Mr. Symes's
companion, on the Greek Island of Paros, where both Mr. Symes and Ms. True
owned vacation homes. 

Mr. Watson told the court that Mr. Michailidis had provided Ms. True with
$400,000 to buy the house. "The money was supposed to look like a loan to
Ms. True, but it was a gift," he said. He said he received this information
in 2003 from Mr. Michailidis's brother-in-law, a Greek shipping magnate. 

Mr. Watson said he was told that Mr. Michailidis had not been repaid. That
testimony seemed to conflict with earlier published accounts, in which Ms.
True acknowledged accepting a second $400,000 loan in 1996 from two American
collectors, Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman, so she could pay off the first.


Ms. True resigned from the Getty last fall after the museum said she had
"failed to report certain aspects of her Greek house transaction in
violation of Getty policy." The museum said the loan from Mr. Michailidis
was a conflict of interest for her because she was doing business with him
on the Getty's behalf. 

A few weeks later, The Los Angeles Times reported the existence of the
Fleischman loan, which the Getty also characterized as a conflict of
interest for Ms. True. Antiquities donated by the Fleischmans form the core
of the Getty's antiquities collection.

Mr. Michailidis died in July 1999 after falling down a staircase in a villa
in Umbria. Without indicating where the information came from, Mr. Watson
testified Wednesday that Mr. Michailidis and Mr. Symes were attending a
dinner at the villa given by Shelby White and Leon Levy, American
antiquities collectors who were clients of Mr. Symes.

In 2001, Mr. Michailidis's family began legal proceedings against Mr. Symes
in an effort to reclaim what they argued was his half share of the men's
business. The family gave Mr. Watson limited access to photocopies of
documents taken from Mr. Symes's files and garbage. 

But Mr. Watson was not allowed to make copies, so those documents are not
available to the Italian court.

Italian officials are also investigating the antiquities collection amassed
by Ms. White, a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and her husband,
who died in 2003. Ms. White has signaled that she is willing to meet with
the Italians to discuss claims that some of her own works were illegally
excavated and removed from Italy.

The trial resumes next week with testimony from members of Italy's art-theft
police.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/30/arts/30gett.html?_r=1&oref=slogin