http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2008117,00.html When we first speculated what Raymond Scott might get as punishment for being in possession of the stolen First Folio, I don’t think any of us guessed eight years – but that’s what he’s getting. Know what makes me sad? The title page was cut out of this one in a sad, amateurish attempt to “disguise” it. What, exactly, happened to that page? You think somebody’s got it framed in a collection someplace? Or you think the genius just crumbled it up and threw it in the trash?
"Six other centuries-old books and manuscripts, including a 15th-century fragment of poem by Geoffrey Chaucer, were stolen in the same 1998 raid. They have not been recovered."
These closing words in the Time story shifted my gaze from the sentence to the police. How thorough was the investigation? The Time piece, which has its own indicia of shoddiness (the Folio was stolen in 1998; it's display in court was the first "in a decade"), presents it as a real puzzler how the thief can drive an expensive Italian sports car and show up in a silver limousine, while he lives with his mother on public assistance and has charged up his credit cards.
When I learned that the other treasures, minor though they may be, had also not been recovered, of course I thought this criminal had sold them off and lived on the loot.
I would like to know how far the police went in following this guy's money and movements all the way back to 1998, and if any assistance was sought from Cuban authorities. (I tend to believe these matters were pursued thoroughly, but the articles I've seen don't show as much.)
And thanks to you, Mr. Shakespeare Geek, for carrying this story along. I would have missed it otherwise.