New York
The return of medieval treasures missing since 1945 to a Lutheran church in Quedlinburg, Germany, has been seen as a triumph in the recovery of objects looted during World War II. Now the Americans who returned those objects to Germany for a fortune have been charged with federal crimes in the US.
Last month the United States government culminated a five-year investigation with the indictment of Jack Meador, seventy-seven, and Jane Meador Cook, sixty-three, and their lawyer, John S. Torigian, for knowingly trading in stolen goods. The defendants are the brother and sister of Joe Tom Meador, an American lieutenant who stole the objects from their hiding place in a cave near the town of Quedlinburg, in Central Germany. The manuscripts had been held for a thousand years in the Schatzkammer of the Quedlinburg Cathedral and were stored in the cave when Allied bombings began in 1943. Meador is said to have seized the objects when he arrived there with American troops in April 1945.
The Meador heirs have been charged with conspiracy and trafficking in stolen goods under the US National Stolen Property Act, and they face the prospect of five years' imprisonment and a $250,000 fine on each count, the stiffest penalties faced by any defendants charged by the US government with trading in loot from World War II. (The federal law is rarely invoked in this sort of case, and even more rarely are former military personnel named as defendants.) The works in question are the Samuhel Gospels, a jewelled ninth-century manuscript written in gold, and the Evangelistar aus St Wiperti, a sixteenth-century prayer book.
The charges launch a new instalment in a story of missing World War II treasures that came to public notice almost six years ago, when the Samuhel Gospels were purchased in Switzerland for $3 million by a German foundation (see The Art Newspaper, No. 22, November 1992 p.1).
Once the Meadors were identified as the sellers, investigators traced the works to Joe Tom Meador, and identified the works as stolen. The German government stopped payments for the Samuhel Gospels and halted talks to buy the prayer book, and then filed suit in Texas to recover them.
In the course of that dispute, lawyers for Germany struck a deal with the Meadors, who denied any knowledge that the two manuscripts or any of the thirteen other medieval works held by their brother had been stolen. Negotiations resulted in the return of the two manuscripts to Germany for a "finder's fee" of $2.75 million, brokered by Mr Torigian, who shared in that payment. The two works returned to Germany in 1994. In the absence of claims on anything but the Quedlinburg objects, all other works in the Meador's possession returned to the Texans, who still hold them.
The US investigation showed that efforts to sell the works began soon after Meador's death in 1980, when his brother and sister approached an appraiser in Dallas, Texas to value the works and guide them through the art market. At that time, according to court papers obtained by The Art Newspaper, the appraiser informed the Meadors that he believed the works in question to be stolen.
Eventually, the entire art world would learn that the stolen objects were available. "Everybody — years before, from about 1986 on for about four or five years — the whole world of medieval manuscripts knew about this, the auction houses, the dealers knew about this. It was offered to the Getty Museum. Christie's sat on this manuscript for five months, knowing that it was missing from Quedlinburg. Sotheby's knew about this. H.P. Kraus knew about it. The Morgan Library knew about it. Various professors internationally knew about this", said Willi Korte, a researcher based in Washington, who helped initiate law enforcement's scrutiny on the Meadors.
In 1989, a Swiss dealer, Jacques Quentin, notified Torigian, the Meador's lawyer, that the objects were Kriegsverlust (war loss), at which point Torigian informed Quentin that his clients had inherited the objects legally. The sale to Germany went ahead.
"That's what's so fascinating about this. Nobody in the end looks really good, including the Germans who bought it", Korte said. "Everybody tried to make money on it. For years, nobody could find the number of the FBI, or the US Attorney's office, or the German Embassy or whatever".
Normally, a claim for the return of the allegedly stolen works of art would be filed by the owners of those works. However, the German government agreed not to make any future claims on objects held by the Meadors as part of its out-of-court settlement with them and Torigian. Moreover, the Germans also drafted a statement that Germany had "no desire" for the United States to prosecute the Meadors for any crimes. A 1993 viewing of the stolen works at the Dallas Museum was another element in the deal. German officials could be embarrassed by details of those agreements if the terms are presented extensively in court.
Items from France are also among the objects that Meador left to his heirs (in fact, the soldier had been court-martialled for stealing works there after the war) but so far the French government has failed to make a claim for the items on its own behalf or join any investigations of the Meadors.
The persistence of the US investigation is the result of constant coverage of the case in the press, particularly in the New York Times, which had published Meador's wartime letters stating that the objects he had stolen "could possibly be very, very valuable".
Given the two Meador heirs' advanced age, a new out-of-court deal may be struck. If the case does come to trial, it threatens to reconstruct the objects' long and unflattering itinerary through the art market as the Meadors sought to get the highest price for the stolen treasures left by their brother (the entire hoard was estimated to be worth $200m). "This case is a model of what happens to a valuable work of art as it finds its way back from the gutters into the five-star hotels of the world", according to Willi Korte, referring to Jack Meador's observation that he thought the manuscripts had been found in "the gutter".
The Meadors now also face fines from the Internal Revenue Service, which is now said to be requesting some $30m from the brother and sister. The Meadors' lawyers call the charges "a tragedy and an outrage" and say their clients will plead not guilty.