ITALO VECCHI ALSO ACCUSED

[Ocatarinetabellatchitchix]

Is anyone surprised by this news ?

https://new.coinsweekly.com/news/coin-dealer-italo-vecchi-charged-with-grand-larceny/

[Severus Alexander]

Handcuffed.

How ridiculous, and cruel.  The guy is 75 and walks with a cane.

[sand]

Nothing that humans do, surprises me.

Here's the original story : https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12224073/Dealer-worlds-expensive-coin-sold-4-1M-charged-grand-larceny-NYC.html 

According to the original story, Mr. Vecchi has been charged with "grand larceny in the first degree, two counts of conspiracy in the fourth degree and second degree criminal possession of stolen property, among other charges".

The original story contains almost no useful information. For example, from whom were the coins stolen? One would think, that would be an important piece of information. It will be interesting to see, what sort of evidence, if any, will be presented, at the trial.

[sand]

P.S. : In the original story, I find the following statement quite amusing.

"Vecchi has allegedly been selling illegal coins for decades, according to court documents."

As if coins, by their very nature, could be illegal.

[Severus Alexander]

Just thought I’d point out that the various MOUs that we object to were signed, extended, and renewed under both parties' various administrations.

https://eca.state.gov/cultural-heritage-center/cultural-property/current-agreements-and-import-restrictions

(Posted in hope that we can avoid a distracting political argument….)

(Edit: Looks like it did work, the post that was going places we should maybe avoid is now gone.)

Edited June 30, 2023 by Severus Alexander

[AETHER]

At first glance, I feel bad for him in a way, at second glance, this is not his first forgery of documentation.  Which to me is a cardinal sin in the hobby. But, does the punishment fit the crime? Probably not.

[Severus Alexander]

As before, we need to clearly distinguish forging provenance documents from theft.

If the alleged “theft” is of a “country’s coin” that is “rightfully” theirs because of dubious cultural heritage principles, then we’re right to be skeptical.

Defrauding buyers by forging a provenance is clearly wrong, however. (Perhaps mitigated somewhat to the extent that this was done to avoid problems due to the problematic cultural heritage MOUs.)

[DonnaML]

59 minutes ago, sand said:

Nothing that humans do, surprises me.

Here's the original story : https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12224073/Dealer-worlds-expensive-coin-sold-4-1M-charged-grand-larceny-NYC.html 

According to the original story, Mr. Vecchi has been charged with "grand larceny in the first degree, two counts of conspiracy in the fourth degree and second degree criminal possession of stolen property, among other charges".

The original story contains almost no useful information. For example, from whom were the coins stolen? One would think, that would be an important piece of information. It will be interesting to see, what sort of evidence, if any, will be presented, at the trial.

I am sure they mean stolen in the sense of illegally exported from the country where they were found, thereby depriving that country of its legal ownership rights.

[DonnaML]

1 hour ago, Severus Alexander said:

Handcuffed.

How ridiculous, and cruel.  The guy is 75 and walks with a cane.

No different from how accused felons, elderly or otherwise, are usually treated after arrest. Unless they used to be POTUS.

I wonder if he showed up from the UK voluntarily. 

I expected this, and wonder why it took so long. Perhaps they were trying to persuade him to flip on Beale.

 

[CPK]

The whole thing is just too bad. I don't have much confidence in or respect for the DA, but still, I at least hope that justice will be dispensed fairly, impartially, and with due consideration. Ideally, without a big media frenzy about it too.

Edited June 29, 2023 by CPK

[TheTrachyEnjoyer]

1 hour ago, sand said:

P.S. : In the original story, I find the following statement quite amusing.

"Vecchi has allegedly been selling illegal coins for decades, according to court documents."

As if coins, by their very nature, could be illegal.

I mean they can be. As this case demonstrates 

[DonnaML]

27 minutes ago, TheTrachyEnjoyer said:

I mean they can be. As this case demonstrates 

It's just a shorthand way of saying that they were illegally acquired, imported, and sold. One could refer to "illegal" goods of any kind in exactly the same way. Nothing unusual to see here.

Edited June 29, 2023 by DonnaML

[akeady]

2 hours ago, sand said:

Nothing that humans do, surprises me.

Here's the original story : https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12224073/Dealer-worlds-expensive-coin-sold-4-1M-charged-grand-larceny-NYC.html 

According to the original story, Mr. Vecchi has been charged with "grand larceny in the first degree, two counts of conspiracy in the fourth degree and second degree criminal possession of stolen property, among other charges".

The original story contains almost no useful information. For example, from whom were the coins stolen? One would think, that would be an important piece of information. It will be interesting to see, what sort of evidence, if any, will be presented, at the trial.

Funny - the Naxos coin shown in the article looked well off and indeed was sold as a modern fake:

Naxos coin in Daily Mail article

Vecchi is no longer shown on Roma's website and his photo' wasn't in their latest mini-catalogue that came in the post a while back.

ATB,
Aidan.

[Hesiod]

17 minutes ago, akeady said:

Funny - the Naxos coin shown in the article looked well off and indeed was sold as a modern fake:

 

That's because daily mail sucks, the naxos tet that the DA complained about wasn't that one.

[akeady]

6 minutes ago, Hesiod said:

That's because daily mail sucks, the naxos tet that the DA complained about wasn't that one.

Yes - I know - the one they should have shown is this:

The real Naxos tet

[Ocatarinetabellatchitchix]

1 hour ago, CPK said:

I don't have much confidence in or respect for the DA

There is a lot of political BS behind this case, and I’ll write a thread about it soon. There are many questions not answered about the return of the coins in their « country of origin ». Maybe we’ll never have the answers, though these questions need to be asked publicly. To be continued….

[DonnaML]

9 minutes ago, Ocatarinetabellatchitchix said:

There are many questions not answered about the return of the coins in their « country of origin ». 

Please keep in mind that it's the country where an artifact was found that has the right to possession, not the "country of origin" in the sense of the place where it was manufactured. If either of these cases ever proceeds to trial (or even a plea bargain), any evidence the prosecutors have on where the coins were found will presumably become public. Unless and until that happens, it's all speculation.

[Ocatarinetabellatchitchix]

1 hour ago, DonnaML said:

it's the country where an artifact was found that has the right to possession,

You’re absolutely right. I meant the « origin » of the discovery, not of the minting.

[Kaleun96]

Anyone feel like ponying up the $90 or so it costs to request the court documents? Perhaps there's a similar affidavit to the one written by Brent Easter for Beale. Though I'm not sure if that was how those documents were originally acquired or if they came from somewhere else.

[DonnaML]

1 hour ago, Kaleun96 said:

Anyone feel like ponying up the $90 or so it costs to request the court documents? Perhaps there's a similar affidavit to the one written by Brent Easter for Beale. Though I'm not sure if that was how those documents were originally acquired or if they came from somewhere else.

It should be free if it's part of the public docket. I will check later.

[DonnaML]

All my personal experience was with civil cases, and it appears that filed documents in criminal cases are not as readily available. How the press got hold of the charging affidavit in Beale's case, I'm not sure, although I suppose the DA's office probably provided it. I imagine that any such affidavit in Vecchi's case will become public soon enough.

Right now, all I see on the public docket is the list of charges and the basic case information:

Edited June 30, 2023 by DonnaML

[Kaleun96]

26 minutes ago, DonnaML said:

All my personal experience was with civil cases, and it appears that filed documents in criminal cases are not as readily available. How the press got hold of the charging affidavit in Beale's case, I'm not sure, although I suppose the DA's office probably provided it. I imagine that any such affidavit in Vecchi's case will become public soon enough.

Right now, all I see on the public docket is the list of charges and the basic case information:

Maybe it needs to be requested from the court itself, or a FOIL request to the DA or police department?
https://ww2.nycourts.gov/foil/CourtRecords.shtml

[DonnaML]

5 minutes ago, Kaleun96 said:

Maybe it needs to be requested from the court itself, or a FOIL request to the DA or police department?
https://ww2.nycourts.gov/foil/CourtRecords.shtml

FOIL requests can take months before there's a response. As I said, I'm sure it will all become public before too long.