U.S. to return rare Stradivarius violin stolen in 1980

[IceWizard]

Thu Aug 6, 2015 10:26am EDT
By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK (Reuters) -
U.S. authorities said Thursday they plan to announce the recovery of a rare Stradivarius violin that was stolen in 1980 from the late virtuoso violinist Roman Totenberg after a performance.

A spokeswoman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney
Preet Bharara confirmed that authorities would
hold a ceremony to turn the violin over to
Totenberg's family after the FBI recovered it in
June.

The violin, known as the Ames Stradivarius, was made in 1734 by Italian luthier Antonio Stradivari and was one of only about 550 in known existence. A Stradivarius fetched a record $15.9 million at auction in 2011.

The violin was stolen in 1980 after Roman
Totenberg, then director of the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts, delivered a performance at the school.

Its recovery was first reported earlier on
Thursday on NPR by Nina Totenberg, its legal
affairs correspondent and a daughter of Roman Totenberg.

In an interview, Nina Totenberg said her father
had long suspected the violin was taken by
another violinist. But the person was never
charged and died in 2011, a year before her
father's demise.

"The FBI didn't have enough for a search
warrant," she said. "So that was that."

According to records filed Wednesday in federal court in New York, in June, an individual presented the violin to an appraiser at a Manhattan hotel.

Totenberg said the individual was the ex-wife of the violinist her father suspected of stealing the violin.

The appraiser notified the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, and the individual agreed to
voluntarily give the violin to authorities,
according to court papers.

No criminal charges are being brought. A civil
lawsuit to formalize the agreement with
Totenberg's daughters and the government to
return the violin was filed late Wednesday.



(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York;
Editing by Bernadette Baum)