Artifact thief to serve prison time
Ex-archivist stole state documents
Friday, October 3, 2008
By Jill Bryce (ï¾…Contact)
Gazette Reporter-Daily Gazette.Com


ALBANY — A former state archivist
and Civil War expert who stole
hundreds of historical documents
and artifacts belonging to the New
York State Library and sold some of
them over the Internet for personal
profit was sentenced on Thursday to
two to six years in prison.


Daniel D. Lorello, 54, of Van
Leuven Drive, Rensselaer,
apologized to his family and
co-workers at his sentencing
appearance before Albany County
Court Judge Thomas Breslin.


In addition to prison time, he must
pay $125,500 in restitution, to be
divided among people who
unknowingly bought stolen property
from him and later returned it to
the state.


He must also forfeit his personal
collection of historic artifacts
and documents, valued at
approximately $80,000, to the New
York State Library and Archives.


Lorello was arrested in January and
pleaded guilty to second-degree
grand larceny on Aug. 8 for
stealing more than 1,600 artifacts
from New York state between Jan. 1,
1997, and Jan. 24, 2008.


The Attorney General’s Office said
on Thursday that more than 1,600
stolen items have been recovered.


“In serving as a guardian of New
York’s historical treasures, Mr.
Lorello abused his position to
steal priceless artifacts instead
of protecting them for future
generations,” Attorney General
Andrew Cuomo said in a statement.


Lorello, in a hand-written
statement submitted to the court
earlier this year, said he stole
the items in part to pay $10,000 in
credit card bills run up by his
daughter. He admitted he took
things when he needed to pay family
bills for house renovations, car
bills, tuition and his daughter’s
credit card problem. He took
between 300 to 400 items in 2007.


The thefts were discovered after
the state Library was contacted by
Joseph Romito, a history buff from
Virginia, who alerted state
authorities to a pending sale of an
item Lorello posted on eBay, and
which he believed belonged to the
library.


The item was a four-page letter to
a New York general by John C.
Calhoun from 1823. Calhoun was the
seventh vice president of the
United States, serving under John
Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson,
and was an avid secessionist.


Lorello also admitted stealing two
copies of the Davey Crockett
Almanac, a Poor Richard’s Almanack,
published by Benjamin Franklin,
which he sold for $1,001, and a
visiting card portrait of Civil War
Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock.


State Education Commissioner
Richard Mills in a statement said:
“Access to the historical
collections of the nation is a
fundamental right in our democracy.
When someone steals from those
collections, we are all harmed.
Fortunately, most of the items
stolen by Mr. Lorello have now been
recovered.”


Lorello, who resigned from his
position at the Department of
Education, had worked at the state
archives since 1979 and oversaw the
movement of records during
renovation. He worked on the 11th
floor of the Cultural Education
Center, the same building where the
State Museum is located.