2 Men Plead Guilty to Stealing $8 Million in Rare Items from Pennsylvania Library

Photo: Allegheny County Jail (2)

A former librarian and a bookshop owner have plead guilty to the theft and trafficking of books, maps and other rare objects estimated to be worth $8 million from a Pittsburgh library.

The two men did not make an agreement with prosecutors as to sentencing, which will take place April 17.

Schulman’s attorney Ember Holmes told PEOPLE in a statement that her client, who has no prior criminal history, “has accepted responsibility for his association with books that, given the circumstances, he should have known had probably been stolen.”

“Mr. Schulman has dedicated much of his life to the rare book trade and regrets that these proceedings have reflected negatively on the antiquarian book industry, as well as his family and customers,” she said.

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Priore and Schulman were arrested July 2018 after an insurance audit done on the library’s R. Oliver Special Collections Room showed that over 300 rare items stored in facility were missing and another 16 were vandalized,thePittsburgh Post-Gazettereported.

The items were valued at around $8 million, according to a report fromlocal news outlet WPXI.

Investigators were also able to track down a 400-year-old Geneva Bible in the Netherlands, theNew York Timesreported, as well as a copy of Isaac Newton’sPrincipiaat a rare bookstore in London.

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Suzanne Thinnes, the manager of communications at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, called the theft “devastating” in a statement provided to PEOPLE on Tuesday.

source: people.com