FBI Says He Waltzed Off With Music, Didn’t Score

FBI agents arrested an employee of the New York Public Library on Thursday on charges of stealing seven rare original manuscripts and letters by composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Richard Wagner.

Some of the items--including a musical score written by Mozart--are worth tens of thousands of dollars on the open market, experts said.

Helard J. Gonzales Ohiggins, a library porter, was seized on charges that he took the documents from a locked cabinet at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts branch then sold them to the rare books department of Strand Bookstore in Manhattan.

Strand later consigned the items to an independent dealer in rare manuscripts who grew suspicious, eventually realizing that they belonged to the public library.

The dealer, David H. Lowenherz, an official of Lion Heart Autographs Inc., said he quickly determined that one of the Mozart items was a forgery. He contacted musical experts about the other documents, which proved to be authentic.

One scholar reported to Lowenherz after checking an index of music Mozart wrote that the manuscripts really belonged to the library.

Lowenherz said he quickly determined that one of the Mozart items was a forgery. He then called the library’s Lincoln Center branch and asked the curator of music manuscripts to check whether other manuscripts and Wagner letters were missing, which triggered discovery of the robbery.

Veteran manuscript dealers said the theft underlined a continuing problem: the need dealers have to authenticate the origin of documents offered for sale and the difficulties many cultural institutions face in guarding and preserving their highly valuable collections.

“This points out a problem that has existed as long as there have been valuable collections donated to museums and libraries, the problem of storing and safely preserving and guarding manuscripts and rare books,” said Diane Hamilton, owner and operator of Charles Hamilton Inc., the well-known autograph and manuscript dealer.

FBI agents interviewed the manager of Strand Bookstore’s rare documents department.

As a matter of policy, Strand requires people selling rare material to the store to provide identification. The store had on file a copy of Ohiggins’ driver’s license, enabling FBI agents to quickly find and arrest him.

Times special correspondent Lisa Meyer contributed to this story.