Buried Treasure or Ill-Gotten Booty?

[robviti]

I'm not sure if anyone else will find this local tale of "dis-organzied crime" as amusing as I do. Anyway, here it is:

Police Arrest Men Who Claimed To Find Buried Treasure

LAWRENCE (AP) -- Two men who made national headlines by claiming they found a buried treasure in a back yard were charged Friday with stealing the collection of old currency from a house where they were working.

Days after Barry Billcliff, 27, of Manchester, N.H., and Timothy Crebase, 22, of Methuen, went on the circuit of national TV shows to tell their tale of finding the stash have now been charged with receiving stolen property, conspiracy and accessory after the fact, Methuen Police Lt. Kevin Martin said.

The arrest, in fact, interrupted their planned appearance Thursday night on ABC’s "Jimmy Kimmel Live" because they were being booked by police around the time the show was airing. They were to have been interviewed from the yard where they claimed they had found the money while digging.

They were to be arraigned Friday morning in Lawrence District Court.

Crebase told investigators the men found the money in the gutter of a barn they were hired to repair in Newbury, police said.

"We got an anonymous tip two days ago," Capt. Kris McCarthy told the Eagle-Tribune newspaper of Lawrence. "These guys are roofers. They found the money on the job site. The story after that was all made up."

The men said they found 1,800 bank notes and bills dating between 1899 and 1928 while digging in the yard of the house Crebase rents.

The materials had a face value of about $7,000. Domenic Mangano, owner of the Village Coin Shop in Plaistow, N.H., examined the find and said the currency was authentic. He gave varying estimates of its worth, ranging from $50,000 to $100,000.

The men’s stories, though, attracted suspicion because of discrepancies. The depth of the buried crate, for example, ranged from 9 inches to 2 feet.

The men also gave conflicting reasons for digging in Crebase’s yard. They told one reporter they were preparing to plant a tree. In other reports, they said they were trying to remove a small tree or dig up the roots of a shrub that was damaging the home’s foundation.

Even Billcliff’s name was the subject of confusion. He complained to the Eagle-Tribune that some media had misspelled it Villcliff, but told The Boston Globe that he had purposely given the wrong spelling so that "people wouldn’t try to track me down or come looking for me."

Billcliff insisted the discrepancies in the story of how the money came to be found could be explained.

"It’s like watching a car accident," he told the Eagle-Tribune. "Sometimes someone will say something and someone else will say something slightly different, but mostly it’s the same."

Christine Tetlow, of Manchester, N.H., who identified herself as a longtime friend of Billcliff, defended him.

"They did not steal this money," she said. "He’s the nicest guy in the world. He’d give the shirt off his back to anybody. If you need money, he’ll be the first person to step up and give it to you and never ask to get it back."

"I guess that 15 minutes of fame" did them in, Tetlow said.

The men made several appearances on national television this week, and police noticed details of the story changed with each appearance.

Police Chief Joseph E. Solomon told ABC’s "Good Morning America" that authorities might never have suspected anything had the men not sought publicity.

"Had they just put the money away or, you know, gone somewhere outside of the area and sold a little money at a time, I don’t think anybody would have known or suspected anything," Solomon said. "Sometimes wanting to be famous is really the downfall of people."

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

[Jazzmoose]

What a couple of maroons!

[Chuck Nessa]

Once again I missed the signs announcing the IDIOT FESTIVAL.

[scottb]

Heard a story recently about a bankrobber who bragged about getting away with it on a radio call in show. A couple hours later the FBI were at his door. Needless to say, he's not "in" on the next gig!