NEW HAVEN -- A map dealer who voyaged across two continents and looted $3
million in maps from some of the world's great libraries is asking the judge
to cut him some slack, citing his charitable acts and the help he gave the
libraries in recovering most of their stolen material.
E. Forbes Smiley, 50, argued in legal papers Tuesday that the judge should
take into account his broad cooperation and years of volunteer work at soup
kitchens and homeless shelters. He asked U.S. District Judge Janet Arterton
for no more than three years in prison at his sentencing next week. His
reputation is ruined, his business destroyed, and he'll pay $2 million to
the dealers he fenced the stolen maps to, his lawyer says.
"Our hope and belief is that the court will sentence Mr. Smiley on the basis
of what he has in fact done, including his cooperation, and not on the basis
of what some speculate he might have done," his lawyer Richard Reeve wrote.
In June, Smiley admitted stealing nearly a hundred maps from Yale University
and other institutions after a yearlong FBI investigation. Now, another two
maps have possibly surfaced in last-minute talks with the government, his
brief reveals. Coming as the case winds down, Smiley's latest disclosure has
thrown fuel on the libraries' fears that he has more secrets to share.
All but one of the libraries Smiley targeted are missing more maps and
believe he may have taken some. The British Library has been the most vocal
about its suspicions and last week asked the judge to send Smiley to jail
for up to eight years, well beyond what sentencing guidelines call for.
Despite the libraries' claims, the thefts did not require great cunning or
stealth, Smiley's lawyer argues. Even after the libraries inventoried their
collections, they failed to recognize they were missing 40 maps that Smiley
later confessed to taking. In all, the government was able to track down 80
stolen maps that would have been forever lost without Smiley's help, his
lawyer claims.
Robert Goldman, a former prosecutor now representing the British Library,
acknowledged that the libraries benefited from Smiley's cooperation - but so
did Smiley himself. By aiding the government, he was able to head off future
prosecutions and reduce his possible jail term. "It's like asking us to
thank the murderer who dismembered the body then returned the body parts,"
he said.
The legal brief provides few clues to how Smiley lost his moral compass
except to reference mental and emotional stress described by friends or
family in letters sent to the court. Last fall, Smiley underwent back
surgery and several years before that, triple bypass surgery.
He started volunteering in college, at Hampshire, working with the mentally
ill and retarded, his lawyer writes. As his career in antique maps took off
in New York, he dedicated time to soup kitchens, homeless shelters and
community gardens. More recently, he helped form a preschool on Martha's
Vineyard where he now lives with his wife and young son.
In the brief, Smiley challenges the British Library's claim that he took an
additional three maps. He says that poor cataloguing has hindered his
ability to cooperate and insists that several of the maps that institutions
still claim he stole were never in the books to begin with. "This is not to
say that the institutions are to blame," his lawyer writes. "It is to say,
however, that the claims regarding institutional record-keeping are
overblown, that Mr. Smiley's actions required less cunning and
sophistication than the institutions claim."