I am going to take up one purpose of the criminal trial other than fact finding with respect to the cases of stolen antiquities, repatriation, and the indictment against the curator of the Getty. These criminal proceedings offer themselves as little more than a Kafkaesque incantation to persuade art collectors and museums worldwide to repatriate suspicious antiquities even if the real heart of the issue is problem with lawless Sicily, new technologies, and ineffective law enforcement in the area. In light of the prejudiced Italian authorities prosecuting the case against an American, this purpose of the trial, then, is something like a show trial. My outline below contains far too much, so I plan to purge a lot of material as the idea takes shape.

A. The crafty theft of the Aphrodite

* The Birth of a Black Market: Portable Metal Detectors in 1970 invite night raiders

* The Role of the Mafia

* Difficulty of proof in prosecutions against the looters

* Judge Magistrate Silvio Raffiotta: owner of house in Morgantina, Sicily; writer of archaeological guidebook for the area. In 1980s, he turned the spotlight, with the help ofprosecutor Ferri, West to American buyers because of the difficulty in prosecuting the looters. Little known to most of the world, Raffiotta was charged with being associated with a smuggler ring at the turn of the century. What could be a cause for his new affectation for prosecuting American museums given his close connection to Morgantina, smuggler rings, and perhaps even the Mafia?

* Illegal event of tomb raiding and 'black market' archaeological digs

* Effects of Smuggling: Dangerous to preserving antiquities, destruction of antiquities, disappearance and thus deprivation of Italian people of Aphrodite

Crucial problem:

* The true culprits in this trial are more directly these tomb raiders of cultural patrimony than what may be a 'bona fide' purchaser. The purchaser falls last in a drawn out chain of commercial exchanges. The night looter -> the smuggler -> Italian customers -> the dealer -> U.S. customs -> the purchaser.

* Thus, if the goal of the Italian government is to stifle the black market in antiquities dealings, the trial against True is a circuitous route to these culprits.

* The failure of Italian local enforcement and customs officials should not bring the force of the state against a foreign professional.

B. The character of Marion True

* True is considered by many to have sound judgment and ethical character

* Industry assumptions of Italian non-enforcement for patrimony laws.

* She supported US enforcement of Italian export laws in front of Congress in the late 1990s

* Martyr -> abandoned by the Getty and facing criminal charges in Italy for executing the institutional policy.

C. The publicity of her indictment across the country and New deals for repatriation

* All major newspapers pick up the story in the US whereas the Italian newspapers barely touched the issues of black market looting and smuggling of antiquities.

* The Symbolic Threat of a 'Cultural Embargo'

* New deals: the Met, Princeton's art museum, Boston Museum of Fine Arts

* Recently, the first private collector finally gives over some pieces from her collection/

D. The Role of Lawyering

* Cultural administrators speaking to lawyers -> Italy's experience with the museums.

* Robert Olson, the big-shot founder of Munger, Toller, & Olson, brings the litigious spirit of American law to bear on the 'commercial' negotiations.

-- JesseCreed - 08 Feb 2008