http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/26/exclusive-feds-investigate-hobby-lobby-boss-for-illicit-artifacts.html


Exclusive: Feds Investigate Hobby Lobby Boss for Illicit Artifacts


One of America’s most famously Christian businesses is amassing a vast collection of Biblical antiquities. The problem is some of them may have been looted from the Middle East.
In 2011, a shipment of somewhere between 200 to 300 small clay tablets on their way to Oklahoma City from Israel was seized by U.S. Customs agents in Memphis. The tablets were inscribed in cuneiform—the script of ancient Assyria and Babylonia, present-day Iraq—and were thousands of years old. Their destination was the compound of the Hobby Lobby corporation, which became famous last year for winning a landmark Supreme Court case on religious freedom and government mandates. A senior law enforcement source with extensive knowledge of antiquities smuggling confirmed that these ancient artifacts had been purchased and were being imported by the deeply-religious owners of the crafting giant, the Green family of Oklahoma City. For the last four years, law enforcement sources tell The Daily Beast, the Greens have been under federal investigation for the illicit importation of cultural heritage from Iraq.

These tablets, like the other 40,000 or so ancient artifacts owned by the Green family, were destined for the Museum of the Bible, the giant new museum funded by the Greens, slated to open in Washington, D.C., in 2017. Both the seizure of the cuneiform tablets and the subsequent federal investigation were confirmed to us by Cary Summers, the president of the Museum of the Bible.

From its founding in 1970, the Greens’ Hobby Lobby chain has been more than simply a suite of craft stores. The Greens have used it as a model of a business run on Christian values. Stores are closed on Sundays in order to give employees time to attend church. The company employs four chaplains, and offered a free health clinic to staff at its headquarters long before free health care came into political vogue. The Greens have also used the Hobby Lobby platform to spread their Christian message far and wide: The company annually places full-page ads celebrating—in their words— “the real meaning of Christmas, Easter, and Independence Day” in newspapers across the country.



But the Greens went from evangelical players to bona fide Christian celebrities in June of 2014 when they won a Supreme Court case, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. It granted them exemption from the Obamacare mandate to provide certain forms of contraception to their employees; forcing the company to do so, the Supreme Court ruled, would have violated the Greens’ deeply-held Christian beliefs.

If the investigation ends with a decision to prosecute, on either criminal or civil charges, the Greens may be forced to forfeit the tablets to the government. There may also be a fine involved. The Green family, who successfully forced the federal government to legally recognize their personal moral standards, now find themselves on the other side of the docket, under suspicion of having attempted to contravene U.S. laws............

Iraqi museums. Stolen. Looted.

Yes, I know their usual MO is to destroy things - objects too large to remove and sell, now that I think about it. I don't thin they (or another equally unsavory group) would be above selling these objects to the highest bidder.

While it breaks my heart that an idiot like Green has them, I am glad they still exist.

Not in Isis-controlled territory.

If you learn more, please add to the conversation.

I'm not hung up on it being ISIS (and admit to being ignorant of where their exact territory); as I said, it could easily be another group that's less of a media darling. As soon as the looting began, I suspected (and hoped) the antiquities would start showing up on the black market. Some collectors (and museums) aren't always too picky about provenance. If it's an organized group of some sort, there's a better chance of more items still existing.

I was unaware the ISIS hadn't looted (stolen) these types of Iraqi artifacts from museums.

that he is to be shipped to Baghdad, Iraq to repair all the antiquities in full restoration from what he stole.

He should be on a ball and chain for the rest of his life.

Some of the most twisted people I know are fundies. So he plundered a fallen nation's treasury did he? Got caught did he? This is a little more serious than the asshole that shot Cecil the Lion.

There could be some jailtime in this one. Hope he reads his Bible. Sounds like he might need his Master's help.