WOODRUFF: Now to a major legal case involving the alleged smuggling of ancient religious
artifacts.
Late yesterday, the Department of Justice said that the nationwide arts and crafts company
Hobby Lobby illegally imported thousands of ancient relics from the Middle East.
William Brangham has the story.
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WILLIAM BRANGHAM, PBS NEWSHOUR CORRESPONDENT: The government's complaint against Hobby Lobby
involves the purchase and importation of 5,500 rare clay tablets and artifacts from Israel
and the UAE, antiquities that likely once came from Iraq.
Prosecutors allege that company missed several red flags indicating that this purchase was
highly suspicious.
Hobby Lobby argues this was an innocent mistake caused by inexperience.
In an agreement with the Justice Department, the company must now turn over all the artifacts
and pay $3 million.
Hobby Lobby is a family-owned evangelical Christian company.
They were at the center of the 2014 Supreme Court case that ruled companies can't be forced
to cover birth control for their employees, and they're also constructing a multimillion
dollar bible museum here in Washington, D.C. that will open this fall.
For more on this case, I'm joined now by Deborah Lehr.
She's chairman of George Washington University's Capitol Archaeological Institute and she's
founder of the Antiquities Coalition, which works to stop the looting of world cultures.
Welcome to the "NewsHour".
Can you tell me just the basics?
What is -- you heard what I said about the overview of this case.
What is the government alleging that Hobby Lobby did wrong here?
DEBORAH LEHR, FOUNDER, ANTIQUITIES COALITION: The government is alleging that they imported
knowingly items from Iraq and that they used falsified shipping labels and that they didn't
get the appropriate import permits to be able to bring these antiquities into the country.
BRANGHAM: And what are these antiquities?
What are the items that we're talking about?
LEHR: They are things, as you said, that are destined for their biblical museum, and they
are clay tablets and cylinder seals and ancient items that were part of that time period in
Iraq.
BRANGHAM: So, my understanding is the company says these were not destined for the museum,
they said they were just part of their larger collection.
But the government also argues that there were all sorts of red flags that should have
tipped off Hobby Lobby that this was not an appropriate purchase to make.
Can you tell us what were some of those red flags?
LEHR: Absolutely.
First, Hobby Lobby is a sophisticated importer and they know very well that you have to designate
the country of origin and the appropriate tariff line when bringing these into the country.
This was not done.
These items, instead of being declared as antiquities, were declared as clay tiles or
samples.
They were not noted that they were coming from Iraq but, instead, that they were coming
from turkey, and it's no mistake that we have an agreement with Iraq that if they were being
brought in and declared coming from Iraq, they would have to get an appropriate permit.
Yet, we don't have a similar type of agreement with Turkey.
They're also coming from a part of the world where conflict antiquities are being actually
excavated by groups like Daesh or ISIS, and knowingly being exported and used as a means
for funding terrorism.
And so, there are quite a few red flags that they should have known, and at a minimum they
should have done provenance research, which they didn't do.
What they actually paid five individuals through seven different accounts and, as I said, then,
shipped these in different packets, which might be understandable, but to several different
locations in the United States and without the appropriate or accurate shipping records.
BRANGHAM: Now, the company agreed they're going to give back these items and willing
to pay this $3 million to the government.
The company argues that they are new to this business and that this was really sort of
a rookie mistake, that inexperience is what caused these problems, not any intentional
looking past these concerns you've raised.
LEHR: Well, that's a very interesting argument for a group that has a business that's based
largely on importing into the country, and it's those two claims that they are actually
being fined for.
We could understand potentially that they may not be sophisticated about the specifics
of what importing antiquities from Iraq are involved, but they are building a museum where
they are importing and collecting historic items from around the world.
So, we hope that there are not other rookie mistakes that they have made within their
bible museum and the antiquities that are there.
BRANGHAM: I mean, Hobby Lobby is certainly not the first organization or institution
to sort of trip this particular wire.
I mean, major cultural institutions in the United States in the past have had similar
problems.
I mean, this is -- it's not an uncommon problem.
LEHR: Well, it's not an uncommon problem, but we haven't seen a find quite this large,
and that it's very hard to bring about these kinds of cases, though we commend the United
States government and certainly ICE for the seizures that they're making.
But the trade in antiquities and the list of antiquities is a global problem, and we're
seeing it on the increase as we see conflict in the Middle East and -- where there are
millions of sites still yet to be excavated.
It's very much just an endless, almost excavation that's out there for thieves to take advantage
of.
BRANGHAM: As we mentioned, they're building this enormous museum and some of Hobby Lobby's
40,000 other items apparently are destined to go into this museum, and other experts
in antiquities have raised concerns about the speed at which some of those items were
gathered.
Have you heard those same concerns?
LEHR: Yes, we've heard those same concerns and one hopes they have actually tone the
type of provenance research that they should be doing to ensure these are not part of the
illicit trade.
They actually had consulted one of the leading cultural heritage lawyers in the case of this
specific import with items coming of these 5,000 items who had recommended that they
do a lot more additional research.
And so, they actually had ignored the warning they received from their own attorney.
BRANGHAM: All right.
Deborah Lehr of the Antiquities Coalition, thanks so much.
LEHR: Thank you very much.