State Worker Admits He Stole Historical Artifacts

Jan 29, 06:10 AM

Jan. 29--ALBANY -- Almanacs owned by frontiersman Davy Crockett, a timetable from Abraham Lincoln's funeral train, and Currier & Ives lithographs of Niagara Falls and West Point were among hundreds of documents allegedly stolen in recent years by a state worker and sold to pay household expenses and his daughter's $10,000 credit-card bill, officials said yesterday.

Daniel Lorello, a 29-year employee of the State Archives, was charged with three felonies, to which he pleaded not guilty in Albany City Court yesterday. A search of his home in Rensselaer has recovered about 90 percent of the alleged stolen artifacts, including between 300 and 400 that were taken last year.

Lorello's illegality, which he admitted to in a sworn statement, was uncovered after a Virginia lawyer became suspicious about an 1823 letter posted for sale on the eBay auction Web site. He then contacted the State Library, where the letter was supposedly stored, and the attorney general's office was brought in.

"This crime is especially repugnant because it's dealing with historic documents, which is literally stealing from the legacy of the State of New York, page by page," Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said at a Manhattan news conference.

He lauded the "patriotism" of lawyer Joseph A. Romito of Richmond, Va., who alerted New York officials to the letter written by Sen. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina to an aide of New York Gov. DeWitt Clinton. The letter touted Calhoun's bid for the presidency, which he lost in 1824 to John Quincy Adams. Calhoun then served as vice president for seven years.

"The letter caught my attention because of the political content," Romito said, explaining he discovered the missive was state property by consulting his collection of Calhoun books. "I had my suspicions ... why would the State Library relinquish this? Our libraries are repositories, where things go and they stay there forever for all of us."

In an interview, Romito said he placed a bid of $1,777 in hopes of "slowing down" the letter's sale. The winning bid of $1,803 came from Cuomo's office.

Such sizable offers helped to spook Lorello, 54, who valued the letter at $700 or less. He soon decided to return it, along with the Currier & Ives lithographs, in hopes "that all be forgiven," according to his four-page statement to prosecutors. He did not return a telephone call yesterday.

"I took things on an as-needed-basis to pay family bills, such as house renovations, car bills, tuition and my daughter's credit card problem," Lorello wrote, recalling his interest in items linked to the American Revolution, Civil War, the Roosevelts, blacks and Jews. "I was never questioned or challenged."

Lorello admitted stealing more last year upon learning surveillance cameras were to be installed. He said most of the documents he sold fetched less than $1,000 a piece. The exceptions were two Crockett almanacs, which went for $2,000 and $3,200, and a small photo of Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock, commander of Union forces at the Battle of Gettysburg, which garnered more than $2,000.

Education Commissioner Richard Mills, who oversees the archives, vowed to increase security. He said, "The security was clearly not sufficient on this occasion."

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