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Apollo 11 Moon Rock Bag Belongs To Buyer, Not NASA, Judge Rules (behindtheblack.com)
schwit1 quotes a report from Behind The Black: A federal judge has ruled that NASA has no right to confiscate an Apollo 11 lunar rock sample bag that had been purchased legally, even though the sale itself had been in error. CollectSPACE.com reports: "Judge J. Thomas Marten ruled in the U.S. District Court for Kansas that Nancy Carlson of Inverness, Illinois, obtained the title to the historic artifact as 'a good faith purchaser, in a sale conducted according to law.' The government had petitioned the court to reverse the sale and return the lunar sample bag to NASA. 'She is entitled to possession of the bag,' Marten wrote in his order." This court case will hopefully give some legal standing to the private owners of other artifacts or lunar samples that NASA had given away and then demanded their return, decades later. Space.com's report adds: "The zippered cloth pouch, which was labeled in bold black letters 'Lunar Sample Return,' was used on July 20, 1969, as an 'outer decontamination bag' to protect the first moon rocks retrieved from the surface of the moon as they were delivered to Earth by Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. Carlson purchased the bag for $995 in February 2015, at a Texas auction held on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service. The bag had been forfeited along with other artifacts found in the home of Max Ary, a former curator convicted in 2006 of stealing and selling space artifacts that belonged to the Cosmosphere space museum in Hutchinson, Kansas."
Excuse me while I lol myself to sleep
a good faith purchaser, in a sale conducted according to law.
So what? All that should mean is that she is not liable for the fact that it was stolen, and that she should be refunded at full cost. It shouldn't mean they can own something that was originally stolen.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
Max Ary stole it.
Texas auction fenced it.
Nancy Carlson bought it.
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Why would NASA bother chasing this? To the buyer its a kind-of-cool conversation piece, but it has no real scientific or historical value.
If she paid $1000, that sounds reasonable. What were NASA's lawyers' fees?
It's my understanding that in general with stolen goods, when this is discovered by you only *after* you bought the item(s), you will lose those goods, and have few legal recourses but to sue the person you bought it from. Buying property that is stolen, no matter how ignorant you are of the nature of the property, does not entitle you to legally possess that property once it is known that it was stolen.
I seem to recall a real estate scam a few years ago that really illustrated this point.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
that means that the stolen property had been recovered by the police but the legal owner (NASA) never bothered to come and pick it up.
Therefore the government (state or local) sold it at auction. It belongs to the woman.
Your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Was there any attempt by the US Marshals Service to return the STOLEN items back to their rightful owners before selling them?
If the answer is no, then this ruling is just another example of how messed up forfeiture laws are in this country.
Nothing to see there...
This is an example of the idea that law is all about rules. In any legal problem, there tend to be multiple rules at work, and the fine factual details matter A LOT.
Here, NASA says it should be able to overturn a completed sale which itself was actually carried out under a court order.
The former director a space museum was convicted of selling space stuff, is sentenced to jail and ordered to pay restitution. The sample return bag is seized by court order, and the court directs that it be sold to pay the guy's fines. The inventory and sale announcement mislabels the sample return bag, so that NASA does not realize that an Apollo 11 sample return bag is going to be auctioned.
The purchaser had not notice that there was anything improper about the sale. In terms of the Uniform Commercial Code, the buyer was a bona fide purchaser for value, and without notice of possible title issues. That makes a difference, as a BFP has better rights in this situation.
NASA's problem is that they want to undo a sale, conducted by court order, carried out by the Marshal's service, and for which a bona fide purchaser bought the item. The court noted that NASA cited "no instance of a court ordering rescission of a sale to a bona fide purchaser after a final order of forfeiture."
This looks like a pretty one-off situation. I wold NOT take this as a general indication that you can go buy Apollo artifacts and not have to worry about NASA getting them back.
NASA doesn't have s great record for preserving artifacts.
They don't seem to know what they have.
This is what got them into this drama.
The lady may better understand what she has and be in a better position to find a good home.
Great societies look forward, declining societies obsess about their past glories. Its a bag, maybe it should have been kept for posterity, but since there were multiple foul-ups they lost custody of it. Offer the current owner something reasonable for their troubles, if they don't want to part with it forget about it and move on.
I knew Max Ary many years ago. All he was guilty of was poor record keeping. Even several astronauts testified on his behalf, but to no avail.