New Haven Independent

Smiley (pictured), who’s 50, was first arrested on June 8, 2005 after a vigilant staffer at Yale’s Beinecke Library found an Exacto knife blade on the floor of the Rare Document Reading Room near where Smiley had been sitting. A detective tracked Smiley down and found seven maps in his possession.

Smiley, a well-known map dealer from a small town on Martha’s Vinyard, chose to cooperate with the FBI. He admitted stealing 98 maps over the course of 3 1/2 years from seven different institutions, including Yale’s Beinecke Library and Sterling Map Library. His cooperation led to the recovery of 92 maps. Six remain missing.

As part of the sentencing, Smiley must pay back $1.9 million in restitution.

In a courtroom on the first floor of the federal courthouse by the New Haven Green, librarians gathered among the benches before United States District Judge Janet Bond Arterton. The many private dealers hurt by Smiley’s beguilement were not present.

Institutional spokesmen retold how Smiley had beguiled staff, “mutilated” antique treasures, betrayed the public trust and conducted a full-on “assault on history” in the name of profit. His theft has also prompted costly security measures.

Frank Turner, director of Beinecke Library (pictured, passing the farmer’s market on his way out of court), said the good will of his staff had been violated and the maps themselves will never be the same after being cut out of their books. At least one of their maps has been “permanently lost,” he said, and the university is “very concerned” about copycat theft.

Clive Field, director of collections at the British Library, was the most disgruntled victim who spoke. Smiley has admitted to stealing one map, worth $100,000, from the British Library, which is run and funded by the British goverment. Field holds Smiley responsible for three more missing maps: The Massachussets-based dealer visited the library twice, and was the only visitor since 1997 to look through all four of the albums with missing maps.

Field urged the judge for a greater sentence than the 57 to 71 months recommended by sentencing guidelines. He framed the map thefts as an “international” loss. “The whole world is now looking to the court for justice.”

Assitant U.S. Attorney Christopher “Kit” Schmeisser (pictured at left) said Smiley should be rewarded for being “forthright” and very organized in assisting with FBI investigations.

Reeve, Smiley’s attorney, asked for a maximum 36-month prison term.

Speaking before the judge, Smiley, apologized for “stealing valuable research materials” and betraying those in the map business who had been his friends. “I cannot imagine the pain and the anger that I have made them suffer. I am very, very deeply sorry and distressed that I allowed myself to get into a place of such selfishness” that prompted the crimes.

Judge Arterton spoke of the “awe” she felt in holding the recovered maps, some over 500 years old, in her own hands. “He compromised and lost historic treasures.” But on account of Smiley’s cooperation, she lessened the sentence to 42 months — roughly the same amount of time over which Smiley reported stealing maps.

Between January 1998 and June 2005, Smiley stole maps from the two Yale libraries as well as the Boston Public Library, the British Library in London, the Houghton Library at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Newberry Library in Chicago, and the New York Public Library.

Smiley was sentenced to 2 years’ probation, with the condition that he give notice before contacting the antique map world; seek mental treatment; and pay back $1,926,160 in restitution. That means when he comes out of prison, he’ll have no assets to his name. The 50 year-old convict will also lose three precious years of time with his 6 year-old son.

Arterton hoped the leniency would send a message to “cunning thieves” of the future who may be considering cooperating with the feds: “If you steal humankind’s treasures, you will go to prison, but if you help recover them that will be taken into account and weighed into the balance.”

Smiley’s jail term will be postponed until Jan. 4. as he continues to help track down a few last maps. He is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 13 in a separate case in Superior Court for first-degree larceny charges for the Yale map thefts. Those terms will be served concurrently.

Outside the courthouse, Britain’s Clive Field grumbled about the sentencing. “That amounts to 12 days in prison for every map stolen. That’s not much of a deterrent to other would-be thieves.”

Then FBI officials loaded 46 maps, wrapped up in boxes, into a sleek Bonneville. They got in and were about to pull away. “You’re trunk’s open!” said a nearby member of the press. An FBI official hopped out and pushed it closed.

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