The New York Times-20080129-A History Buff Uncovers Thefts Of American History Treasures

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A History Buff Uncovers Thefts Of American History Treasures

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Until two weeks ago, Joseph Romito, a history buff, was not a person who trolled the Internet for artifacts related to the statesman John C. Calhoun, a 19th-century vice president.

But on Jan. 17, he happened to type the name into a search field on eBay, saw a listing for an obscure handwritten letter signed by Calhoun in 1823, and recalled having seen it somewhere else.

What's more, he had enough knowledge of Calhouniana to turn to his own 25-volume collection of Calhoun's correspondence to verify his hunch.

Mr. Romito's index to the Calhoun volumes listed the letter as the property of the New York State Library. He alerted the library, and was told that the matter was being looked into.

I didn't know what was going to happen, Mr. Romito said. So he bid on the item himself. I knew I wasn't going to end up buying it -- I wasn't going to pay for it -- but I put in what I thought was a very high bid to try and keep it from going somewhere else. The government can be slow.

Mr. Romito's discovery led quickly to a state investigation, and on Monday resulted in charges being filed against the would-be seller, Daniel D. Lorello. Mr. Lorello, 54, has worked at the New York State Archives in Albany for 29 years. The state attorney general's office has charged him with several criminal counts, including grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, and scheming to defraud.

In a handwritten confession that the authorities obtained from Mr. Lorello on Thursday, he said he had been illegally selling rare books and documents from the state's collections since 2002. His thefts intensified last year, he wrote, because my daughter, Maria, unexpectedly ran up a $10,000 credit card bill.

I estimate that I've taken more than 300 or 400 items in 2007 alone, Mr. Lorello wrote. The attorney general's office said he sold them on eBay and at collectors' trade shows. Robin L. Baker, a deputy attorney general, said at a news conference that investigators had discovered more than a dozen boxes of stolen items at Mr. Lorello's home in Rensselaer. She said they were believed to form the majority of the stolen documents.

The government said that Mr. Lorello was an archives and records specialist at the State Archives.

Among the most valuable items he sold was a Davy Crockett's Almanack, which went for $3,350.

Mr. Romito, whom Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo called the hero in this case, is a lawyer in Richmond, Va., specializing in litigation and estate planning. He earned a master's degree in history at the University of Illinois, focusing on the Middle Ages, he said during an interview, but I'm also interested in American history, Southern history, and Calhoun in particular.

The eBay letter, dated Nov. 9, 1823, is addressed to a Colonel Haine, who Mr. Romito figured out was Charles Haine, a personal secretary to DeWitt Clinton, a two-term governor of New York. Over the course of four rather vague pages heavy with insider-speak, Calhoun, Mr. Romito deduced, is asking Haine to drum up support for him in New York should he decide to run for president against John Quincy Adams. Mr. Adams will fall without a blow, he predicts. (A year later, Calhoun was elected vice president.)

The listing on eBay, by a seller who identified himself as lld1863, described the document as a super letter with excellent content and one that would make a great addition to any 19th-century American political autograph collection. He noted, There are the usual mailing folds present as well as overall age toning and minor foxing.

Last Tuesday, the day the auction was to end, bidding for the letter stood at $274 before Mr. Romito took matters in his own hands and indicated that he was willing to go as high as $1,777.77, should a bidding war break out.

At 8:55 p.m., with five minutes to go, a member of the attorney general's office took up Mr. Romito's tactics and began bidding for the item -- only to be automatically outbid by Mr. Romito. Finally, a bid of $1,802.77 stuck, and the government was declared the winner.

A listing page on eBay shows that without the bids of Mr. Romito and the government, the highest offer was $795, by a bidder presumably unaware of the document's complicated provenance.

Two days later, the seller gave his confession.

Mr. Lorello wrote that on the last day of the auction, he realized that state archivists were aware of the fraudulent listing, and he began to sense that he was being outfoxed. I first became nervous after a conversation with Kathleen Roe, my boss's boss. She asked me if I knew who 'LLD' on eBay was. I knew that it was me.

Mr. Cuomo said that the government was continuing to piece together the value of everything that Mr. Lorello had stolen. Mr. Lorello noted in his confession that most of what he stole was not particularly valuable (some of his items sold for as little as $10). Most of the artifacts were known among dealers as trash, he wrote, although he used a trashier word than trash.

[Illustration]PHOTOS: An 1823 letter by John C. Calhoun was offered on eBay and led to the discovery of a thieving archivist.; A version of Davy Crockett's Almanack drew a high price in an unauthorized sale.; Daniel D. Lorello