This may not be the most successful crime ever, but odds are it was the quietest. A librarian at Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh just pled guilty to stealing more than $8 Million worth of rare books over the course of the past 25 years, then fencing them through the owner of a bookstore.
63-year-old Greg Priore worked as the archivist and manager of the library’s rare book room. And back in 1992, he started stealing books and working with the owner of Cailban Book Shop Warehouse, 45-year-old John Schulman, to sell them.
The scheme was busted in 2017 when the library audited its collection and found there were 300 items missing.
The most valuable book was Isaac Newton’s “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica” worth $900,000. All in, the items Greg stole were worth $8,066,300. And most of them have not been recovered.
Greg pled guilty to two felonies, theft and receiving stolen property. John pled guilty to receiving stolen property, theft by deception, and forgery. That sounds serious, but they could get as little as probation, or as much as 16 months in prison when they’re sentenced in April.
(Here’s a picture of Greg, and here’s one of John.)
