{"id":1090487,"date":"2021-12-06T15:43:36","date_gmt":"2021-12-06T20:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1090487"},"modified":"2021-12-06T15:43:39","modified_gmt":"2021-12-06T20:43:39","slug":"man-who-might-be-most-prolific-u-s-artifact-thief-gets-one-day-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/man-who-might-be-most-prolific-u-s-artifact-thief-gets-one-day-in-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"Man Who Might Be Most Prolific U.S. Artifact Thief Gets One Day in Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fman-who-might-be-most-prolific-u-s-artifact-thief-gets-one-day-in-prison%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1090487&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/UK-prison-640x335-1.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">A man named Thomas Gavin could be one of the most prolific artifact thieves in American history, but there are no movies or books about him.<\/p>\n<p>It was not until a few years ago that anyone had ever heard his name, NPR <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2021\/12\/05\/1061008298\/thomas-gavin-might-be-americas-most-prolific-artifact-thief-but-the-jig-is-up\">reported<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cBut Gavin had been on a tear in the \u201960s and \u201970s, hitting nearly a dozen museums on the East Coast. He mostly stole antique firearms and stashed them in his hideout \u2014 a cluttered, non-descript barn in rural Pennsylvania,\u201d the outlet said.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"8.1516587677725\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">He may be one of the most prolific artifact thieves in U.S. history, and in court last week a judge sentenced him to one day in prison for decades of theft.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/cklvTMV779\">https:\/\/t.co\/cklvTMV779<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NPR (@NPR) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NPR\/status\/1467533581463564293?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 5, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>His crime spree was so unknown that no one figured it out until 2018 when the man attempted to unload a rare, Revolutionary-era rifle to an antique dealer.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>Initially, Kelly Kinzle did not realize what he was seeing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI looked at it and I said, \u2018Well, this is a copy of a famous rifle,&#8217;\u201d Kinzle explained. \u201cI said, \u2018This isn\u2019t the original \u2014 has to be a copy.\u2019 And he didn\u2019t say anything, didn\u2019t correct me, and I bought it literally for a copy of a famous gun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Once Kinzle took it home, he had a feeling about it and continued studying the gun.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI took it apart and when I took it apart. It was period. It was correct. I went to a reference book \u2014 I had bought an old out-of-print book \u2014 and I flipped through it and I found a photograph of the gun,\u201d Kinzle commented.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd under the photograph, the caption was: \u2018Stolen from the Valley Forge Historical Society in 1970,&#8217;\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>It turned out to be one of the only surviving rifles crafted by master gunsmith <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amrevmuseum.org\/collection\/rifle-made-by-john-christian-oerter\">John Christian Oerter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Video footage from 2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=L9lEGstWBjs\">showed<\/a> the stolen rifle in a display case:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Revolutionary War-Era Rifle Recovered Nearly 50 Years After It Was Stolen\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/L9lEGstWBjs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p>The copy Kinzle believed he purchased for $4,000 was accurately valued at $175,000.<\/p>\n<p>The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was searching for the rifle, and when agents questioned Gavin about how he came to have it, all was revealed.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B4\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>That happened in 2019, and the case has finally made it to the courts, resulting in a ruling.<\/p>\n<p>However, it was not clear the number of items the 78-year-old Gavin allegedly stole.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s been so long that a lot of the places he claimed to hit don\u2019t exist anymore, or they don\u2019t have a record of the thefts. And most of the statutes of limitations on the items he stole have expired,\u201d the NPR report said.<\/p>\n<p>Gavin recently pleaded guilty to a count of \u201cdisposal of an object of cultural heritage stolen from a museum,\u201d the outlet added.<\/p>\n<p>A judge considered the man\u2019s age and health condition and sentenced him to a day in prison after decades of theft.<\/p>\n<p>According to NPR, the rifle was put on display inside the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, where it was on loan from the Pennsylvania Society of Sons of the Revolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A man named Thomas Gavin could be one of the most prolific artifact thieves in American history, but there are no movies or books about him. It was not until &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1090487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1090487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1090487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1090487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1090487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}