Word: mashberg
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Dates: during 1997-1997
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...then came the stinging public criticism of Tom Mashberg and the Herald. A criticism that until then had been only privately grumbled by both law enforcement and museum officials. "In helping these crooks get a ransom, they have been a facilitator of criminal conduct," says attorney Alan Dershowitz, who mercilessly flogged his targets in Boston Magazine. But he didn't stop with Mashberg and the Herald. The Federal Government and the Gardner took some lashes too, for negotiating with scoundrels. "We're not talking about kidnap victims or terrorists holding hostages. It's art. It's great...
There was, in fact, another way to handle the phone call Mashberg took that day in August. What if he had immediately called the feds and said, "Guess what, I may be looking at a stolen Rembrandt later tonight. Here's where I'll be, so follow at a safe distance." WE'VE CAPTURED IT! certainly makes a better headline than WE'VE SEEN...
...question, says Mashberg, who's grown so leery himself that he shunned a TIME photographer last week. For starters, no reporter can afford to burn his sources. Secondly, as per his sources, he didn't even inform his editors of his little adventure until it was over, and their only question was, "When can we get it into the paper...
Responding to Dershowitz's slam, Mashberg says, "I'm a journalist. I'm not an agent of the government. The Federal Government makes deals with criminals all the time. They turn drug dealer A loose to get drug dealer B; they free mob killer A to get mob killer B. And Alan Dershowitz represents wife abusers and murderers. I don't see how he isn't guilty of the same thing he accuses me of. This case basically was nowhere after 7 1/2 years, and in the last 7 1/2 weeks, look...
Last week negotiations were still open on whether Youngworth would be given immunity for returning a small part of the booty as a show of proof that he could deliver the rest. That, in itself, makes it look like the feds believe Tom Mashberg actually saw the real thing that day. If they thought it was a fake, wouldn't Youngworth and Connor have been sent back into their holes...