Posted on 12/06/2006 1:51:05 PM PST by grjr21
(2) They were stolen regardless. If I secretly take a flatscreen from work and replace it with another flatscreen surrpetitiously I have still committed theft and my employer has every right to press charges against me in a court of law for theft. There is no legal right to take someone else's property and then replace it with something that should pass for equal value.
(3) The value was not equal. When he stole the coins they were already among the rarest coins on earth.
McCanin was not playing a prank. he was violating his responsibilities as a Treasury officer and risking his career and his freedom for a reason: ill-gotten gain.
(4) The 1933 Double Eagles and the 1932 were no longer of equal value starting 9 days before he stole them.
Nothing was stolen but a potential 'collectors value'.
No, actual coins that did not belong to him were stolen.
George McCanin committed, at worst, a misdemeanor in 1933, and is long dead.
He committed at least two felonies: (1) fraud, (2) grand theft.
As long as people are still trafficking in the valuables that he stole from the US taxpayer, the case is not closed.
I'm confused. Is the Fenton the "Brit" to whom you later referred?
Also, you're implying that Fenton got 1 of Farouk's coins. Whereas the article says the US never got either of the 2 back, and implies that Farouk & Co. still have too.
I'm confused. Is the Fenton the "Brit" to whom you later referred?
Also, you're implying that Fenton got 1 of Farouk's coins. Whereas the article says the US never got either of the 2 back, and implies that Farouk & Co. still have 2.
Sorry, how stupid. I meant "two", not "too".
The fact that the US government was willing to settle with him was predicated on the assumption that the farouk coin was the coin in fenton's possession.
If Farouk had more than 1 coin, he never disclosed that fact to customs or any of his family members.
Poor research and execution. There are coin experts in Brazil, too. ;)
Fascinating thread. Some great thought-provocation going on here. I'm gonna have to go back up and read it again.
Isn't there also an equal protection angle? Seems that the government has already let two go without prosecution. Picking on this one, then, is a bit capricious.
I guess they had a chance of sneaking a pound or so of rare coins out of the US without tripping a metal detector at the airport.
You'd have to be confident enough to just throw them along with a handful of quarters and pennies and your house keys into one of those grey bins in the airport that the metal detector guys use for pocket change.
If they stowed it in their luggage chances of detection would go up astronomically.
The government did prosecute Fenton and later acquiesced to a plea deal.
The Langbords have not been charged with any crime.
I wonder if there shouldn't be, or in practice if there isn't already, some de facto statute of limitations on stolen property. There is a de jure statute for the perpetrator of a theft, but the property itself I think reverts to the pre-theft owner pretty much in perpetuity.
But it isn't enforced evenly, especially for various historical artifacts. I wonder if maybe there ought to be some amount of time after which, since the crime is no longer prosecutable that the property itself has a new legal owner. Don't know.
I shouldn't have said prosecution. What I mean is that they let go of the property and didn't pursue it. They didn't "prosecute" the case to the completion of the return of the property.
If somebody hands me a 1943 copper penny in my change, it's mine.
And I doubt very much the government would contest it.
Same principle. The burden of proof is on the government.
I'm sorry, I got confused. Farouk did have only 1 coin. Too bad the article didn't indicate it ever left him and his heirs.
If McCanin was never prosecuted, the coins belong to the owner. The case appears to stand on a guess, at best.
I'm sure theft has a statute of limitations.
We're not talking about coins that were legally circulated.
We are talking about coins that were stolen from the US Treasury.
On what basis? Certainly not any legal one.
There is no guess. The coins are stolen property.
I do not know if there are any statutes of limitations for defrauding the federal government or stealing from the US Treasury, though.
In a criminal case, the burden of proof rests upon the prsoecution, while the defendant is presumed innocent.
Were the government prosecuting the Langbords, the burden of proof would rest on the government.
There is no burden on the owner of stolen property to prove that his property is his own.
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