British Library Says Judge Should Be Tough on Map Thief Smiley

-- Library Journal, 9/18/2006

Federal Judge Janet Bond Arterton in New Haven faces a dilemma on Sept. 27 when she sentences admitted map thief E. Forbes Smiley III, a map dealer who victimized special collections at major libraries in the United States and abroad. Smiley in June pleaded guilty to having stolen, over seven years, 97 maps worth about $3 million. Prosecutors agreed to recommend a prison term of 57 to 71 months (about five to six years), but the British Library, one of Smiley's victims, has urged the judge to not let him off so easily. In a legal brief filed yesterday, library lawyer Robert E. Goldman asked the judge to add about two years to the sentence range.

The library cited the theft of a nearly 500-year-old map by Peter Apian, a German cartographer, as well as its fears that Smiley took three other maps but has not yet come clean. The sentencing guidelines, the library said in its filing, as quoted in the New York Times, "substantially understate the seriousness of the offense…. The case of United States v. Smiley has made painfully clear that Smiley created his marketplace and built his inventory through the systematic looting of the world's great libraries.'' Also, Smiley's thefts have affected the reputation of libraries and thus public support, staff morale has suffered, and books and maps are now scarred, according to the brief, as noted in the Hartford Courant. While Smiley at first claimed he "did not remember" if he stole more maps from the British Library, the library argues, he later denied it.

Smiley's lawyer, Richard A. Reeve, told the Times that the filing "ignores a central part of this case, which is that the libraries are getting back maps that they would never have gotten were it not for Mr. Smiley's cooperation.'' Confessed perpetrators of crimes of violence often see their sentences reduced because of cooperation with the authorities. It's up to the judge to evaluate whether Smiley has, in fact, cooperated sufficiently.