[MSN] Map Dealer Deserves Stiffer Term, British Say.

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Map Dealer Deserves Stiffer Term, British Say 
              
By ALISON LEIGH COWAN
Published: September 14, 2006

STAMFORD, Conn., Sept. 13 - The 486-year-old map, bound for most of its life
in a book that helped shape Britain's view of the world, survived the
burning at the stake of the archbishop of Canterbury, who owned it, civil
war, royal intrigue and the Nazi bombing of London.

Everything, it appears, but the arrival in London in 2005 of Edward Forbes
Smiley III, an American dealer in antiquities who specialized in obtaining
hard-to-find trophies for his customers. 

In June, Mr. Smiley, 50, pleaded guilty in federal court in New Haven to
having stolen 97 rare maps from some of the world's leading universities and
libraries, a staggering haul estimated at about $3 million.

Targets of his seven-year crime spree included Harvard, Yale and the New
York Public Library. Also on the list of items taken was the centuries-old
map by Peter Apian that was ripped from a book Mr. Smiley found at the
British national library.

Because of that $100,000 map, and three more missing maps that the British
Library believes Mr. Smiley may have snatched, the library is arguing that
he deserves more than the 57 to 71 months in prison that prosecutors and Mr.
Smiley's lawyers backed at the time of the guilty plea.

In a legal brief dated Wednesday, the library's lawyer, Robert E. Goldman,
urged Judge Janet Bond Arterton of Federal District Court to impose a
harsher sentence - of at least 78 to 97 months - when she revisits the case
on Sept. 27. By law, the judge can impose up to 10 years, or 120 months,
because the case involves the theft of a major artwork, although sentencing
guidelines suggest a lower range.

So far as the British Library is concerned, Mr. Smiley is no ordinary thief,
and what he systematically stole transcends monetary loss. It complains in
its brief that the sentencing guidelines "substantially understate the
seriousness of the offense,'' and it quotes liberally from Theodore
Roosevelt, Robert F. Scott, the Antarctic explorer, and Samuel A. Alito Jr.
to bolster its case.

"The case of United States v. Smiley has made painfully clear that Smiley
created his marketplace and built his inventory through the systematic
looting of the world's great libraries,'' the brief says.

As the brief put it, "The Apian world map stolen from the British Library by
Smiley tells but one tale of the 97 maps stolen,'' adding that it was torn
from a volume once owned by Thomas Cranmer, the archbishop of Canterbury,
who was a key adviser to Henry VIII and was burned at the stake for his
beliefs by Mary I in 1556. 

The book, which was confiscated, became part of the Royal Library and was
eventually given to the British Library at its inception in 1973, according
to the brief, where "the volume remained intact until visited by Smiley.''

But Mr. Smiley's lawyer, Richard A. Reeve, said: "It's all very interesting,
but the reality is that map has been recovered. It's going back to the
British Library.'' 

Mr. Reeve added that Mr. Goldman's memo "ignores a central part of this
case, which is that the libraries are getting back maps that they would
never have gotten were it not for Mr. Smiley's cooperation.''

Of the 97 maps that Mr. Smiley acknowledged stealing, federal agents have
recovered 88 so far, said Thomas Carson, a spokesman for the United States
attorney's office in New Haven. 

http://www.nytimes.com/