Displaying items by tag: judges

A Spanish court sentenced a man on Wednesday to 10 years in prison for crimes including the theft of a priceless medieval document considered the first guidebook to Spain's Saint James pilgrimage trail.

Police recovered the unique 12th-century manuscript in July 2012, a year after it was found to have gone missing from a safe in the famous cathedral of the northwestern city of Santiago de Compostela.

Judges in a court in the nearby city of La Coruna said in a written ruling that they "consider it proven" that an electrician who worked for years at the cathedral, Manuel Fernandez Castineiras, stole the manuscript.

Following a seven-year legal battle over a Sandro Botticelli painting "Madonna and Child" (1485) that was caught up in the collapse and ensuing bankruptcy proceedings of Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, rulings by two New York judges last month have resulted in the painting—worth an estimated $10 million—being returned to its rightful owner, Panama-based Kraken Investments. Ronald Fuhrer, a Tel Aviv-based dealer and advisor to Kraken, confirmed to artnet News that he had retrieved the painting on behalf of the investment firm on December 8. At various times, it looked as though the painting would be classified for legal purposes as gallery collateral and thus one of the assets that should be sold to repay creditors, despite the owners insistence that it had merely been loaned for a show.