Did prosecutors really
need to lock up a respected art curator with a heart condition and an
amputated leg?
On May 9,
Roxanna M. Brown, 62, the director of the Southeast Asian Ceramics
Museum in Bangkok and a world authority on ancient Southeast Asian
ceramics, flew to Seattle, Washington, to speak at the University of
Washington. Five days later, she was dead in a federal jail. The case
has sent shock waves through the international art collecting
community.
Brown, an
amputee with a heart condition, is so far the only person to be
arrested in what the US Attorney’s office in Los Angeles
describes as a five-year investigation into a plot to artificially
inflate for tax purposes the value of antiquities donated to museums
in Southern California. The indictment, made available by the US
Attorney’s office, alleged that Brown loaned her electronic
signature to a gallery in Los Angeles to be used to inflate
appraisals of art objects, primarily Ban Chiang pottery from
Thailand. Assistant US Attorney Joseph Johns, the Los Angeles-based
prosecutor heading the probe, described Brown as “one of many
targets.”
That statement
awakened concern on the part of importers, dealers and collectors in
the US that they could be arrested next. There is a growing rift
between archaeologists demanding that the provenance of all
antiquities be proven and permission obtained before objects are
exported, and dealers and importers, who say such rules are
impractical and impossible. James J. Lally, the former head of
Sotheby’s and proprietor of the J.J. Lally art gallery in New
York, is a leader of the protest against federal action. Lally was
traveling in Europe and unavailable for comment. However, he has
argued, for instance, that after 1949, China confiscated all
antiquities and, during the cultural revolution, Mao Zedong demanded
that they be destroyed as part of what were called the Four Olds:
Old Custom, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas.
Lally said
during an Asia Society conference in New York in 2006 that Asian
antiquity sales in the United States account for no more than 4
percent of the total Asian trade, or about US$65 million. The huge
preponderance of the trade is in China, where the value is estimated
at US$1.8 billion and where nobody much cares about provenance unless
a piece goes overseas. European collectors are not subject to such
restrictions. Others point out that legitimate collectors
tend to protect art and share it, keeping it for subsequent
generations, and that collectors in many ways rescue art that
might well be lost otherwise.
Beyond the
dispute over provenance rules, Brown’s friends in the art and
journalism communities are demanding to know why an internationally
recognized figure who suffered from a heart condition and appeared in
court in a wheelchair, was kept in jail over the weekend. Although
Brown’s death is still under investigation, she was found dead
at 2:30 am on May 14, apparently of a perforated ulcer, while
awaiting transportation from a federal detention center to Los
Angeles. Her brother, in Chicago, said he was certain that stress
brought on by the arrest was a contributing factor to her death.
“Roxanna
Brown arrived in Seattle without a clue as to what was going on and
was blindsided by an overzealous prosecutor,” said a friend of
hers. “It's the weekend and none of her university contacts are
in the office and she probably doesn't have their home phone numbers.
Her cell phone isn't compatible with the US telephone system. A
younger, healthier person might have been able to wait until the
system started to function. Unfortunately, she was unable to
withstand the conditions in which she was held.”
Asked why an
amputee in ill health would be considered a flight risk, Emily
Langlie, a spokesperson for the US Attorney in Seattle, said that
“Because of her dual citizenship, there was concern about her
remaining in the jurisdiction of the US District Court.”
A letter signed
by 432 friends and associates of the dead woman, including William H.
Itoh, a former US Ambassador to Thailand, said that “It is not
only the cruelty of Roxanna's incarceration we seek to redress, but
the slur cast upon her name by the accusations that prompted her
arrest. For a scholar of such integrity, who tirelessly sought
to raise the level of ethical practice in the trade in ceramics, it
is a cruel irony that her reputation has been thus tainted. We
cannot bring back Roxanna, but we can try our best to clear her of
any shadow of wrongdoing, and restore her good name for the future.”
According to an
affidavit filed with the federal court in Los Angeles in support of a
search warrant, the story began in September 2003 when customs agents
intercepted a shipment of artefacts from Thailand that were bound for
the Silk Road Gallery in Los Angeles, owned by Jonathan and Cari
Markell. The five-year investigation ultimately alleged that the
Markells knowingly bought, imported and sold stolen Chinese and Thai
antiquities and participated in a conspiracy to help others donate
the antiquities to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Pacific
Asia Museum and the Mingei International Museum, all in Southern
California.
In addition to
receiving stolen antiques, the affidavit alleged, the Markells helped
others file false tax returns with inflated charitable deductions. In
order to do so, the affidavit alleged, the Markells borrowed Brown’s
electronic signature. As one of the world’s top authorities on
Thai ceramics, she was in effect certifying the price and provenance
of the stolen goods.
According to the
affidavit, an undercover agent ultimately befriended the Markells by
posing as an art buyer and prospective tax evader. Ultimately, she
made 10 purchases of various materials. Because charitable donations
over US$5,000 would attract the attention of auditors, all of the
donations were for US$4,990. All of the appraisals made by the
Markells allegedly had cover letters falsely stating that they had
been prepared by Brown, although she had never seen them. Brown’s
electronic signature would ultimately appear on scores of appraisals
for donations to museums throughout California.
There is plenty
in the affidavit that seem to show the Markells knew what they were
doing. The undercover agents asked them pointedly and repeatedly if
they knew that what they were doing was illegal. But there is nowhere
in the 39-page document that indicates Brown was aware of what her
signature was being used for.
“We do not
know why the US attorney in Los Angeles took the extreme action he
did,” said Tim Ford, a lawyer with MacDonald Hoague &
Bayless of Seattle, who was retained by Brown's family. “From
what we know about Ms. Brown and what little we know about the
circumstances of her arrest, it seems beyond overzealous.
However, sadly, the law in the U.S. now gives prosecutors enormous
power to arrest and charge and provides for little accountability
when that power is abused.”
Brown had a long
history in Southeast Asia, having first gone to the region as a
freelance correspondent during the Vietnam War. In 19909, as the
conflict wound down, she moved to Thailand and became interested in
Southeast Asian arts and ceramics, ultimately receiving a doctorate
in art history from the University of California, Los Angeles. She
founded and ran the ceramics museum, at Bangkok University that she
headed when she died.
In 1990, leaving
the Dusit Thani Hotel in Bangkok, the motorcycle on which she was
riding was hit from behind by a tuk-tuk and she was thrown under the
wheels of a truck, which ran directly over her and crushed her chest
and shattered her leg so badly that it had to be amputated.
Brown, say
associates, was in large measure responsible for the development and
preservation of Southeast Asian ceramic antiquities, although she did
not specialize in Ban Chiang pottery, which formed a large part of
the objects the Markells donated or helped to donate to museums.
Because of her
role in preserving and promoting antiquities, her friends say, it was
unthinkable that she would knowingly allow her signature to be used
fraudulently.
Asked in an
email about the case, Jon Markell replied that “I wish I could
comment. My wife and I loved Roxanna, were good friends and were
devastated by, first, her arrest and, second, her death.”
The only clue to
Brown’s thinking came as she was being removed from her hotel
in Seattle by authorities and encountered an associate who saw her
being led away. She was reportedto have said she had made a mistake
and that she had sent her signature.
Whether she knew
what her signature was going to be used for may never be known.
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