Saturday, November 14, 2015

"Safe haven" self-justifies collector/curator/dealer in smuggling Pakistani artifacts

Antiquities dealer, who also is a collector and a curator of his own online "museum", cops a plea. Note the "safe haven" self-justification.

McNamara said he kept, rather than sold, most of the materials he imported from Pakistan, as his interest was mainly in the scientific value of the relics rather than the monetary value. He said he did not think initially that what he was doing was illegal and, in some ways, thought he was rescuing precious materials. 
But McNamara acknowledged that he realized that willful ignorance of the law was no excuse for his crime, and he did sell some of what he imported. He admitted that he and the others conspired to create fake documents indicating that their shipments had Pakistani government approval, and that he lied to U.S. Homeland Security investigators looking into the matter.

No comments: