Bangkok Museum Director Arrested

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Compiled by Noelle Barton, Caroline Bermudez, Maria Di Mento, Audrey Hill, and Anne W. Howard.

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May 13, 2008

Bangkok Museum Director Arrested

Roxana Brown, director of the Southeast Asian Ceramics Museum, at Bangkok University, in Thailand, was arrested on Saturday in Seattle, where she was detained and indicted in connection with a federal investigation of looted Southeast Asian artifacts, reports The Seattle Times.

Ms. Brown, who was scheduled to deliver a speech at the University of Washington that afternoon, is charged with one count of wire fraud. She is accused of allowing her electronic signature to be used on appraisal forms for pieces that were donated to several Southern California museums at inflated prices so collectors could claim fraudulent tax deductions. She faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

A public defender, hired to represent Ms. Brown temporarily, did not comment on the charges she faces.

Comments

I’m the executive officer of, http://www.ceramique14.com. I was in Bangkok one month ago where I got the opportunity to be invite by Ms Roxana Brown to visit the Ceramics Museum of south-east Asia at Bangkok University Campus. She was absolutely wonderful to explain all the evolution of the ceramic collection that she constructs step by step with a perfect chronological history and civilizations influences. This panoramic museum is the most important collection of south east Asian ceramics in the world coming from indisputable source: the excavation of the principal archeological site in Thailand. She was probably the most important specialist of ceramic art history of South –East Asia. I can’t imagine that she could be at the origin of looted antiquities, and the federal investigation has to clear and rehabilitated the memory of a great historian and to focus their research around the fraudulent collector’s attitudes.
I’m really sad about this tragedy.

François Lahaut
Hommage à Roxana Brown

— Lahaut May 15, 03:48 AM #
This is the same investigation which involved the “sting” operations on Los Angeles museums, I believe. It appears to be a sort of dragnet in which anyone working in a museum which receives donations from private individuals is suspect.

— Don Thieme May 18, 07:59 AM #

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