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Friday, June 23, 2006
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Mr. Smiley and the Order of the Wormholes Cast your mind back to UD’s post on Hampshire College and Princeton Theological Seminary educated, Martha’s Vineyard ensconced, E. Forbes Smiley, who carried out his elegant trade -- the sale of rare old maps -- with the help of X-Acto knives. It turns out there are lots of valuable old maps in valuable old books. All you have to do is go to various libraries’ rare book rooms and rip them out. Smiley did this for years until someone at Yale’s library caught him doing it. "A video surveillance system showed him removing a map valued at $150,000 from a book," reports the New York Times. He'll go to jail for five years. He's returned a lot of the maps. 'At one point, Judge Arterton asked [the prosecutor] to detail the evidence the government was prepared to bring had it tried Mr. Smiley. The prosecutor said he had experts to testify that wormholes in the maps found on Mr. Smiley lined up with wormholes in the books on Yale's shelves that contained the maps.' Perp walk Princeton-style.  'Gawd. No cameras.' |