[F_minor] TX college ex-prof convicted of lesser charges in GGmemorabilia trial

["Robert Merkin" <bobmerk@earthlink.net>]

The Associated Press
Friday 27 October 2006

Austinite convicted of possessing stolen memorabilia

College professor acquitted of theft charges.

NEW YORK -- A New York jury convicted an Austin college professor of criminal possession of memorabilia stolen from Canada's national library.

Barbara Moore, 62, of Austin was convicted Tuesday on two misdemeanor counts of criminal possession of stolen property from the late classical pianist Glenn Gould.

The pilfered items, which prosecutors called Canada's national treasures, included a page with Gould's signature written 18 times and a page containing an outline for a musical composition depicting sounds of sea, wind and gulls.

Moore, who taught at Austin Community College when she was arrested, attracted attention after she sold some Gould items to a New York dealer in December 2004.

Prosecutors had accused Moore of stealing the mementos from the Canadian Library and Archives in Ottawa while doing research in the late 1980s. Jurors acquitted her on felony theft charges, however.

Some jurors said the verdict was a compromise forged after 12 hours of deliberations over two days.

Juror Gustav Seliger, a radiologist, said many jurors thought that Moore was guilty of theft but that the prosecutors had failed to prove their case. He said he had wanted to convict her on the more serious charges because he doubted that the library's archive curator had freely given Moore the Gould items, as she had claimed.

Moore's lawyer, Shane Michael Brooks, called the verdict a huge victory.

"They exonerated her completely of the larceny," he said. "They convicted her of the lowest possible thing they could have convicted her of."

Moore faces up to a year in jail, but Brooks said that because she had never been arrested before and because of her age he will ask for probation.

Manhattan State Supreme Court Justice James Yates, who allowed Moore to remain free on $5,000 bail, scheduled her sentencing for Dec. 13. 

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http://www.playbillarts.com/news/article/5492.html

Playbill Arts
Friday 27 October 2006

Defendant in Glenn Gould Document Trial Gets Split Verdict

by Vivien Schweitzer

Barbara Moore, the 62-year Texan woman charged with illegally possessing Glenn Gould memorabilia, was found guilty of two misdemeanor counts of criminal possession of stolen property on October 24, reports the Associated Press. The New York jury acquitted her of two felony counts of grand larceny.

The verdict was reportedly reached after 12 hours of deliberations over two days. Some jurors thought Moore was guilty of all charges but that prosecutors had failed to prove their case, according to the AP; others reportedly felt sorry for her.

Juror Marty New, a documentary filmmaker, voted to convict Moore of the felony charges; the AP quotes him as saying, "She was trying to get away with something. She was a smart woman. This was very much a compromise verdict."

The New York Times writes that other jurors said they were "reluctant to send a gray-haired woman with a cat and not much money to jail over what appeared to be scribbles that most people would have crumpled up and thrown in the trash."

The AP quotes Moore's lawyer, Shane Michael Brooks, as calling the verdict "a huge victory -- They exonerated her completely of the larceny. They convicted her of the lowest possible thing they could have convicted her of."

Moore was initially charged with third-degree criminal possession of stolen property, fourth-degree grand larceny and third-degree attempted grand larceny.

Moore faces up to a year in jail, but Brooks will ask for probation; she is currently free on $5,000 bail and will be sentenced on December 13, according to the AP.

Moore, a 62-year-old college professor, was arrested last May on charges of possessing stolen items that had once belonged to Gould and are now worth thousands of dollars, including photographs, books, compositions, audio and video recordings, letters and personal items of Gould's such as hats and gloves.

Moore's lawyer said the Gould items in his client's possession were uncatalogued materials given to her legally by Stephen Willis, the late curator of the the Canadian Library's Glenn Gould archives in Ottawa, but a judge asserted that the accession stamps found on many of the items indicated they had been made a permanent part of the Canadian Library's collection.

The story came to light when Moore sold a few of the Gould items to New York dealer Roger Gross, who was reportedly unaware the items were stolen, in December 2004. A Gould researcher in British Columbia spotted the items for sale on the Internet and alerted the police last December. The New York Police Department's Cyber Crimes Unit recovered the stolen items and referred the case to the Manhattan district attorney's office.

Gould, the legendary Canadian pianist whose work is preserved on such discs as his two iconic versions of Bach's Goldberg Variations, was born in 1932 and died in 1982 at age 50 in Toronto.

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