Posted on 07/24/2020 7:10:40 PM PDT by ransomnote
LOS ANGELES – A Palmdale resident was charged today with illegally importing a mosaic depicting the Roman god Hercules that is believed to have been made nearly two millennia ago.
Yassin Alcharihi, 53, was named in an indictment that charges him with one count of entry of goods falsely classified.
The indictment alleges that Alcharihi claimed he was importing a mosaic and other items valued at $2,199, when in fact he was importing an ancient mosaic worth more than that. The indictment also alleges that he misrepresented the quality of the mosaic and what the artwork depicted.
The charges in the indictment are allegations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Alcharihi will receive a summons to appear for an arraignment in United States District Court for an arraignment that will likely take place next month.
This case is being investigated by the FBI’s Art and Antiquity Investigations group and Homeland Security Investigation’s Los Angeles Public Safety Group.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Mark A. Williams and Matthew W. O’Brien of the Environmental and Community Safety Crimes Section, and Justice Department Trial Attorney Ann Marie Ursini of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section.
The government is pursuing forfeiture of the mosaic, which was seized by FBI and HSI agents in 2016, in both the indictment and a 2018 asset forfeiture complaint being handled by Assistant United States Attorney Katharine Schonbachler.
Well he was high. He didn’t know what he was doing.
Cultural artifacts have become so important to legal abstractions of persons that flesh and blood persons are not worthy to own them.
We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!
A new mutation in Homo Sapiens to compete with Florida Man: High Desert Man.
Tear that mosaic/mural down!
I seem to remember a farmer who found a complete articulate Tyrannosaur skeleton and the Feds took it a few years back.
More detail on the looted mosaic here.
https://culturalheritagelawyer.blogspot.com/2018/06/importer-restored-ancient-mosaic-fbi.html
I hope the mosaic is repatriated to the legitimate government of Syria which has lost so many cultural treasures since 2012.
If the government can later change its mind later about the valuation it once accepted then who is ever safe?
The complaint alleges that the mosaic was imported into the United States with paperwork indicating that it was part of a shipment of vases and mosaics worth only about $2,200, but Alcharihi later admitted paying $12,000 for the items. Preliminary estimated values for the mosaic at issue in this case are much higher, according to the complaint.
The guy cheated and used the wrong tariff codes. And it is very probable that the mosaic was stolen and the paperwork is fake.
You can not plate gold with copper, import it as copper and then claim they "changed the valuation". It was always gold and you lied.
If we stopped caring and levying taxes a whole lot of government oversight could just go away.
So you are giving up on the "just a poor victim" shtick.
I notice you quietly avoid the fact that the mosaic was probably stolen.
Hardy souls,all.
Hercules wasn’t a god, just a hero and a demigod.
Asserting it was stolen ... not a probably, only a possibility. Anyone can assert anything and these days there’s a whole cultural artifacts belongs to the legal abstraction of the society thing so that they cannot leave even if they can be traded around locally ... there are people who would call exporting things stealing based on that.
Also, Floyd didn’t commit armed robbery. He passed a bogus bill. He didn’t go to jail but seems to have died from drugs and preexisting conditions. You must be referring to someone else but have Floyd on the Brain like so many folks. So actually no big, typos happen and stuff like that there.
As for lying to the government, why not? It doesn’t obey the Constitution and is not legitimate for much of what it lawlessly does as a result. It also lies to the people all the time: never trust it even when you can verify.
Our founding fathers knew better than to trust central government to do anything more than what it alone could do that the States couldn’t do. People trusting it and faithless men like FDR is what enabled it to grow into the obscenity it is. We’d be better off in cases like this not caring and not taxing and therefore not having whole layers of unnecessary federal government.
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The trick to mosaic smuggling is to bring it into the country one tessara at a time, and reassemble it.
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