LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) – A Virginia couple is suing a wealthy Louisville man who they say conducted a smear campaign against their gun business.

The Courier-Journal reports that John and Belinda Jones are suing Owsley Brown Frazier for $5 million plus punitive damages in federal court in Alexandria, Va. The suit says Frazier, a millionaire whose family started the Brown-Forman Corp., altered documents, inflated antique gun appraisals to avoid taxes and misled federal authorities.

Just last month, Frazier settled a fraud lawsuit he filed in 2004 against an Alabama gun dealer, Michael Salisbury. The settlement was not disclosed. Frazier met Salisbury over a decade ago and enlisted him to help build a world-class weapons collection. The Joneses were originally part of Frazier’s suit against Salisbury, but they were later dismissed as defendants.

 

Their suit says “Frazier went to great lengths to tout his influence in various arenas of public life, including asserting his ability to control who would get prosecuted with regard to his false allegations.”

Frazier attorney Ed Stopher says the new suit is “unfounded and scurrilous.” He said the couple, of Haymarket, Va., signed a release discharging Frazier from “all claims and causes of action” when he agreed to dismiss them from the Salisbury suit.

Salisbury, his wife and another man were also prosecuted by federal authorities, who alleged Salisbury inflated the prices of the guns he acquired for Frazier. According to court records, the historic weapons included President Theodore Roosevelt’s “Big Stick,” Geronimo’s bow and arrows, and revolvers given to Gen. George Custer.

Attorneys for Salisbury argued at the criminal trial last year that Frazier was aware of the price markups, and that the two had a secret agreement to pay Salisbury commissions on the gun buys.

Salisbury and the others were cleared of felony charges but Salisbury was convicted on two misdemeanor charges of failing to pay taxes. He was sentenced to two years but is free pending his appeal.

 

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Information from: The Courier-Journal,

http://www.courier-journal.com

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-ES-06-17-09 1047EDT

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) – A statue taken from a secluded limestone chapel at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay has caretakers praying for their lost St. Anthony.

Joan Jadin’s family takes care of the chapel. She says the theft is ironic because St. Anthony is the Catholic patron saint of lost items – the saint someone prays to if they’ve lost something.

Campus police said they could see where something heavy had been dragged on the path from LeMieux Chapel in the Cofrin Memorial Arboretum. The theft was discovered Sunday.

Jadin calls it “a sad day.” She says, “It’s always been a place of comfort.”
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Information from: Green Bay Press-Gazette,
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-CS-06-16-09 0011EDT

PARIS (AP) – A red notebook of 33 pencil drawings by Pablo Picasso has been stolen from a specially locked glass case in the Paris museum that bears the painter’s name, authorities said Tuesday.

The book is believed to be worth 8 million euros ($11 million), a police official said.

The theft took place between Monday and Tuesday morning at the Picasso Museum, removed from a glass case that “can only be opened with a specific instrument,” the Culture Ministry said.

A museum employee discovered the notebook missing Tuesday morning from the second-floor display case, the police official said anonymously, as police are not authorized to discuss cases publicly. The museum is closed on Tuesdays.

There was no surveillance system in the room where the notebook was displayed, the police official said.

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NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) – Yale University’s acquisition of a Vincent Van Gogh painting that Russia once claimed as its own amounted to acceptance of stolen property and “art laundering,” a descendant of an earlier owner alleges.

Pierre Konowaloff of France argues in recent court papers that Russian authorities in the 1917 revolution unlawfully confiscated the painting owned by Konowaloff’s ancestor and that the United States deemed the theft a violation of international law.

“Yale’s continued and wrongful detention of the unlawfully confiscated The Night Cafe is prohibited by customary and international treaty law,” Konowaloff’s attorneys wrote in the filings. “Yale should be held accountable for financially benefiting and being complicit in the pillage and plunder and unlawful confiscation of cultural property.”

The Ivy League university sued in March in federal court to assert its ownership rights over the painting and to block Konowaloff from claiming it. Konowaloff is the purported great-grandson of industrialist and aristocrat Ivan Morozov, who bought the painting in 1908.

Russia nationalized Morozov’s property during the Communist revolution. The painting, which the Soviet government later sold, has been hanging in the Yale University Art Gallery for almost 50 years.

Yale received the painting through a bequest from Yale alumnus Stephen Carlton Clark. The school says Clark bought the painting, which shows the inside of a nearly empty cafe, with a few customers seated at tables along the walls, from a gallery in New York City in 1933 or 1934.

But Konowaloff alleges Clark knew of the painting’s ownership history and that “Yale engaged in a policy of willful ignorance” when it accepted the piece in 1961.

“As an institution of higher learning of worldwide renown, Yale knew, or had reason to suspect, that it’s bequest from Clark involved looted art,” Konowaloff’s attorneys wrote. “Yale’s unquestioned acceptance of the Clark bequest amounted to ‘art laundering’ that involved the knowing receipt of stolen goods.”

Konowaloff wants the immediate return of the painting as well as damages.

Yale responded Tuesday that the Russian nationalization of property, while sharply at odds with American values, did not violate international law.

“Clark’s title to the painting was good, and so is Yale’s,” Yale said in a statement. “Clark bought the painting in good faith. When he left it to Yale, the painting had been publicly displayed for decades, and no one had ever contested Clark’s ownership of it.”

Konowaloff said he became the official heir of the Morozov collection after his father died in 2002 and he began to try to document the inventory. He said his grandfather did not try to do so “for reasons of personal security and due to the lack of any available judicial remedies at the time.

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-CS-06-03-09 1604EDT

WORCESTER, Mass. (AP and ACNI) – A Hudson woman has pleaded guilty to stealing about $724,000 in cash and goods from the auction house where she once worked.

The Massachusetts Attorney General’s office says 72-year-old Joanne Shea pleaded guilty in Worcester Superior Court on June 2, 2009 to larceny and making false entries in corporate books during the period of 1993 through 2006 while an employee of Skinner Inc. She was sentenced to 10 years of probation, including two years in home confinement, and ordered to pay restitution.

A well-respected company whose blue-chip sales have achieved several world auction records, Skinner Inc. first contacted Massachusetts State Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office in October 2006, telling them they suspected Shea had been stealing money and merchandise from them over a 13-year period. A Skinner representative told the State Attorney General’s office that they believed Shea had used a “lapping” scheme that utilized incoming cash payments to cover funds she had previously taken out. An investigation was launched, and details soon began to surface regarding how Shea had engineered the alleged crimes.

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FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) – A suspect has pleaded guilty to a murder charge in the strangling death of a Fairbanks businessman.

Raymond Jones, 29, pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree murder in the December death of Daniel Frederick, 62, who operated Blondie’s Antiques out of a log cabin in downtown Fairbanks.

Frederick disappeared from his shop, leaving beloved pets behind and unfed. Three current or former soldiers, including Jones, came under suspicion after using Frederick’s credit cards on a spending spree of more than $50,000.

Frederick’s body was found a few days later wrapped in a sleeping bag and buried in snow on the south outskirts of Fairbanks.

Michael Moore, 24, reached a plea agreement last month.

Both Jones and Moore have agreed to testify against the third suspect in the case, Brian Towndrow, 22. He is scheduled to go to trial in July on charges of first-degree murder, robbery, evidence tampering and other charges.

According to prosecutors, the three killed Frederick to keep him from speaking about an incident being investigated by the military. Authorities said Moore pushed Frederick to the ground, Towndrow strangled him and Jones acted as a lookout.

Afterward, Towndrow reportedly tried to clean the crime scene with Windex.

Public defender Jennifer Hite is representing Towndrow. She said in court she is still waiting for the prosecution to turn over evidence, including notes from an interview an FBI agent conducted with her client.

Jones will be sentenced Oct. 12. He faces 10 to 25 years in prison.

Towndrow faces up to 99 years in prison on the murder charge alone.

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Information from: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner,

http://www.newsminer.com

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WS-06-02-09 1343EDT

JONESBORO, Ark. (AP) – Artifacts of prehistoric people who lived in Arkansas are being dug up by criminals. Dr. Julie Morrow, station archaeologist for Arkansas Archaeological Survey, wants to get the word out that raiding the state’s past is a felony.

Morrow said that every winter, looters go to the Little Turkey Hill and Harter Knoll sites in Independence County to dig.

“It’s a felony,” Morrow told The Jonesboro Sun. “People think they can trespass on anybody’s land. They think they don’t need permission.”

Morrow said the Antiquities Act and an unmarked burial law protect the sits. If items taken from a burial site are valued at more than $2,000, it makes the theft a felony, she said. Continue reading