The Book Thief | 9

Once in a while a story comes along. That's kinda surprising. I totally know what you mean. Sensational details can initially be attractive, but there are certain episodes that once you start digging into them, it just lingers in your head for a while. just that. Yes, we're talking rare one of a kind artifacts worth millions of dollars or Priceless kind of history. This is about a person. Who broke world records by undertaking a twenty year long

Welcome to ScamTown, an Apple original podcast produced by FunMeter. I'm Brian Lazarte, and I'm James Lee Hernandez. We're filmmakers who've been trading stories now for quite some time. We love a surprising heist, an intricate scam, or just poorly. Curtain on something you think you know. Entering a world that's stranger than fiction. and tragedy. This is Today's episode, the Book Thief.

When you consider the valuable items a criminal would go to the trouble of stealing, top of the list would be Right, you know, jewelry stores or museums, not libraries. But in nineteen ninety, these assumptions were challenged when the FBI raided a home in Atomwa, Iowa. Iowa. Inside they found a mansion full Filled with 19 tons of rare books. And these weren't dog-eared copies of Daniel Steele romance novels. A songbook from the year 800, a Nuremberg Bible dated back to 1480.

Individual books range from minimal value to what is described as us as priceless. This thief hits hundreds of university libraries across 45 states. And several Canadian provinces. But the Bannett's motives were still unknown. Other than a big payout, what would drive someone to steal more than 23,000 rare books and manuscripts? I mean when you when you're when you're obsessed and you're driven, anything's possible.

He's written 10 books, largely about books themselves. His first, A Gentle Madness, explored the unique passion of book collecting. You pick it up, I mean it's got this creamy textured, leather binding. you smell the leather, you you know, you stroke it y uh the the colors if it's beautifully printed and the texture of the paper. All of these things there's a tactility to it. Now book collecting might be a little highbrow, but

Like other passions, it can overtake unsuspecting individuals. The bibliophile is the master of his books, the person who loves his books, and the bibliomaniac is a s is their slave. Book bandits typically fall into two camps: library patrons with sticky fingers, or the insider. The biggest threat to libraries and to museums is someone who knows what's in the collection, who knows where the catalog.

references are who can make cards records disappear. Not some guy from the outside. Well the Klepto in this case, let me tell you, seasoned pro. Somehow their thefts went largely unnoticed. four decades. Ninety percent of those books were not known to be missing until the day they were discovered. It's just amazing when when we found out how much was missing, how we hadn't caught it sooner.

These thefts were starting to attract more serious attention in the late 1980s by librarians and archivists. Who experienced the crime firsthand? We'll be hearing from them, including Tim Pyatt, who says he basically walked in the shadow of the book thief because he worked in not one, but two different institutions hit by the burglar. And it started with

A pretty big discovery at the University of Oregon. He stole almost twenty one shelf feet of manuscript material. You know, the the boxes weren't missing, just the contents inside were. So we had no way of knowing they'd actually been removed. And we found the box was empty. That experience was not uncommon. Most of the targeted universities have more than one library, and one campus can own millions of books.

Next to discover some of their books are missing, Washington State University. A librarian from another institution advanced to see an item that we had in our collection. And they could not find it. Eileen Brady is a retired WSU science librarian. She recalls that, after that initial discovery, her colleagues at the Rare Book Library on campus.

In early nineteen eighty eight, a university officer named Stephen Huntsberry was tapped to investigate. Campus police have unfortunately a not very good reputation those places. Randokop is one of them. But Huntsbury proved to be different. Before landing at WSU, he served with distinction as a Navy officer in Vietnam, completed a history degree. With his good looks and voice, he worked for a time as a lounge singer, attended Harvard Summer School, and finally the Police Academy.

In short, Huntsbury was more than happy to defy expectations about being a, you know, rent-a-cop. As Huntsbury learned more, his dedication to the case was fed by the book bug. He was handed a book to explain what had been stolen when he realized how old it was and that Somebody like Christopher Columbus could have handled it. It just electrified him, I guess might be the word.

Some of their missing titles dated back more than 500 years. Which brings us to Incunabula. Incunabula, it's Latin for in the cradle, and it's books that are printed in the first From fourteen fifty to uh uh fifteen oh one. So they might be printed, but they would go back and hand decorate manuscripts or color in capital letters and things like that.

There was a lot of customization that would happen. Aware that the thief is thirsty for incunables and other rare materials, Huntsbury dives into the investigation.

This case is such a high priority for WSU, it's his only assignment. So the first thing he does is work the phones. He starts calling every law enforcement agency up and down the West Coast to see if there had been any arrests of He methodically contacts other university libraries to see if they too were hit. His work was starting to pay off. Huntsbury gets a call from the University of Oregon saying that they were also robbed.

Tim Pyatt says that these crimes were likely harder to solve because There was a stigma attached to admitting that They too had fallen prey. People were incredibly embarrassed if they were uh if a library is robbed. And I felt embarrassed at the time. They didn't want to tell other folks about it. They tried to keep it underground. In fact, you know, we at Oregon really had to fight with the administration.

administration to get the word out that we'd been robbed so others would be on the alert. Around this time it also became clear that the PERP was very familiar with the libraries and arrived with a wish list. We had a published catalog of our manuscript collections

that each had a number assigned to the collection, so he basically used that as his shopping list and went through and sort of checked off the ones he wanted to see. Pyatt says it was frustrating when he learned they'd been helping the thief identify his favorites. And then of course we

Being you know librarians, we had them in the little number order that was in there. So once he got in the storage area, it was really easy for him to go and find the items that he wanted. For anyone born before nineteen ninety, you'll remember the card catalog. You'd have to open up the colour.

Open a little drawer and finger way through and look at numbers, decimal points, and then you'd have to take that and go to a physical shelf and hope to God that the book is actually there. Of course you know the various ways we list a book in the card catalogue. और सब्चेट By author and by title? That's right. Ah yes. Who can forget

The Dewey Desmal System? Can you tell me where I can find a book on astronomy? Think I know where you're pulling that from, James. It's from the movie UHF. Don't you know the Dewey Desmal? System Conan the Librarian. If you're a fan of Weird Al, it's an absolute must watch. Some of his best work? It's great cinema. It's fun for the whole family.

With the Dewey Decimal system, let's just say you really had to work to get that book. Speaking of analog, Huntsberry, armed with news of the apparent links in these book crimes, drafts a warning flyer. And he blasts it over teletype. Now, for those who have no idea what teletype is, it was pretty handy when you needed to remotely print something pre-fax machines. And here's what it read.

Attention university and police agencies with jurisdiction over extensive valuable, rare book, and manuscript collections. In the last four months, two libraries have been hit. The suspect has been very selective. It goes on to say that the culprit's apparent motive is to sell the books and documents, and that they exhibit a thorough knowledge of library procedure.

Especially since the suspect somehow completed each heist after hours and gained access to areas off limits to the public. Basically, beware of this pro and make sure to check your rare collections. Huntsberry also puts his name and contact info at the bottom of the message. And it doesn't take long. Or he gets a call. A police detective out of Los Angeles says the flyer Made him go to every public library branch in LA to warn them that a book thief is out there on the loose.

Here's archival audio of Huntsberry explaining what happened next. You may need to lean in a little. It's not the best audio. And he said, I went into Clark Library and they said to him, funny you should mention. Um two weeks ago a fella came in, decided to treat person. He was dirty, he was hyper. For clarity, he said they saw a guy at Clark Library who looked dirty and acted hyper. But

They uh found him in a uh a section of the library that he wasn't supposed to be in. He was in a section of the library he wasn't supposed to be. So they asked him to leave. This random guy was gone, but they did notice a ring of keys was missing too. So they checked the registry book. And we used a driver's license from the Minnesota and a faculty ID card from the University of Minnesota. It's signed Matthew McGew.

A guy with a Minnesota driver's license and a faculty ID from the University of Minnesota. It's starting to look like an inside job, after all, by the professor. But a Minnesota ID in LA kinda throws a curveball. Huntsbury checks to see if he has a police record in Minnesota or California. And there's nothing. He's clean. About a week later, staff at UC Riverside received a version of Huntsbury's flyer, this time shared by the head of security at the Getty Museum.

It had additional details, including a suspect description. Male Caucasian, five foot eight, slim build, thin and greyish hair, and a library card with that name again, Matthew McHugh. A month later, now retired library assistant Charlotte Dessens is working the night shift at the UC Riverside Library. She is at the circulation desk. It's business as usual. Well, she sees one of the custodians firmly escorting an oddly dressed man towards her. With his hand like on the arm of this man.

was dressed in a like the gray suit, kinda ill fitting, too big for him, dark hair with a mustache, and said This man in special collections. Not once but twice. She had some weird excuse like, Oh, I left my notebook in there. The suspect hands her an ID. that matches the name On the flyer.

So when I saw the name it clicked and I just started asking general questions. She didn't have to ask many before they called the police. He wanted to go and sit down and wait. And I said, No, you'll stand right here. Here until the police come, you are not going anywhere. I must have had a firm enough tone that, you know, he thought he better just stay there and not try to get away. In his briefcase they found an array of gear for picking locks. Think dentistry tools.

And they found some incriminating redo material. There was an article in there about how security on campus wasn't great. And it wasn't. I think there was maybe one officer covering the whole campus at night, and we had no security guards in the library either. The police charged this professor McGew with trespassing and possession of burglary tools. He was fined and released on his own recognizance. He hightails it out of state and never shows up for a scheduled court appearance.

This is the first big break in the case, and Huntsbury, informed about their arrest, continues to add up clues. Tim Pyatt recalls also having a run-in with a man when he worked at Duke University, who looked and acted very similar to the one at UC Riverside. This guy comes in and he's like in a sort of a shabby tweed jacket with disheveled hair.

and his uh personal hygiene wasn't of the highest quality. So far, other than stealing books, our bandit is becoming known for being a guy who sports a threadbare blazer and maybe doesn't love soap.

But he was a visiting scholar and wanted to wander around and look at things and you know, I sort of followed him around'cause he just sorta he seemed kinda odd. But you know, this is another day where we were very trusting. I mean, we just had him sign in on a ledger Over the the next couple of months we would have these sort of random late night we thought that at the time alarm malfunctions.

Quiet came to learn that the only research this nutty professor type was conducting was after hours testing of the library's alarm system to check response times. So he knew how many books to steal before the police arrive.

Pretty ingenious. Next, Huntsberry calls Riverside to request a copy of the suspect's mugshot. He keeps digging and zeroing in on the suspect's fingerprints. Here's Huntsbury again. and the information I had about this guy and sent it to every state in the union and specifically sent it to the Department of Licensing in the um in in Minnesota. He says that he sends the fingerprints and all he has on McGu to every state in the Union. That's definitely dedication.

A couple of weeks later, Huntsbury gets a call back. It's one of those calls that could easily start out with You better sit down for this. Those prints. don't belong to Matthew McGew, but they do belong to someone else. Someone with a rap sheet in Minnesota. And he's got a long record of heading theft. And guess what? He steals books. And or not. He steals books. And doorknobs? So that's how the lake came together.

that this phony professor was actually this different person. Just to make sure you heard that correctly, he said Matt McHugh Is actually Stephen Carey Blumberg. All this time, they've been looking at the wrong name. This was a huge crack in the case for Huntsbury. Armed with this revelation, he goes to the FBI. And nothing happens. The case becomes less of a priority for WSU and is moved to the back burner.

But Huntsberry can't leave it alone and actually continues to work it in his off time. And even pens an article published in 1989 in which he names Steven Blumberg as the So a couple months

After the article comes out, which also happens to be about two years after Huntsberry shares Blumberg's identity, the FBI finally raids his home. But when they enter his three-story mansion, he's not Not there. And if you were nearby, you might have heard some gasps. Yep. They expected, you know, maybe a few books, a couple of hot antiques. But what they discovered was a mansion. Overflowing.

The men moving the books are astounded at what they've seen inside the home. Claire to the ceiling. We were able to get our hands on Actual footage the FBI recorded of the house before the books were seized, and it's pretty jaw-dropping. Located in this room were several manuscripts, letters. All seventeen rooms floor to ceiling are jammed with books. And journals which were identified as being stolen from the University of Oregon. Hallways just off this room. Attic is a second

Room on the front of the house. Even the bathroom. Located in the bathroom again is a smaller bookcase. containing additional books and literature. Many of the books still have identification plates. Indicating they were removed from libraries. Uh a squadron of FBI agents uh

arrived at his home and to seize something on the order of nineteen tons of books. You know, they needed a two semi uh trucks to remove everything. During this raid, sometime In the middle of the night, early morning, Blumberg actually shows up. And I don't know James, ha have you ever heard of a story where the perpetrator like actually enters a house during the raid rather than

Jumping out the back window? Yeah, uh typically people just try to make a run for it. But I guess he was more used to evading capture in libraries and not fleeing federal agents in his kitchen. After two decades of stealing tons of books, literally, Blumberg is finally arrested. Nick Basbands was busy writing his book about bibliophiles, already bumping up against deadlines. But what he was discovering about the suspect made him an irresistible subject.

You know, there have other been other book thieves. Their motivation was to s to sell them. You know, it was greed. This wasn't his motivation at all. That made him very interesting to me. You know, this was a guy who stole them for the love of them. Now I've heard of romance novels before. But this man was stealing. In the name of love? A love that turns into obsession.

The he's the the collector who sort of goes over the cliff, whose passion can't be controlled or is expressed in ways that uh aren't really very acceptable to society. They still squander their fortunes, they've lost their families. I guess they realized he wasn't interested in resale when they found, as we mentioned at the top of this episode, His stash of a whopping twenty three thousand books. The Blumberg Collection, you could call it.

And the guy motivated to break into hundreds of libraries from Sea to Shining Sea just to fill his mansion full of books?

А є Буберг'с арест, хир-не-федрокорт. А вот в лайк а бигер монстр. Uh somebody who really looked nasty and evil? That's Fraser Cox, the curator of special collections at the Knight Library at the University of Oregon, sizing Blumberg up for the first time. This was the moment. Everyone had been waiting for. All the archivists and librarians who traveled to Iowa to testify were finally seeing the man who terrorized them and their collections for decades.

Kind of craggy faced guy, uh shaggy hair. Average height, skinny. A guy you might describe as good at blending in. Just sat there and uh didn't say anything. What he was hearing, of course, were People telling what he had stolen and people who were angry at him who felt betrayed by him. Bas Baines rearranged his life to cover the trial in 1991. Historic for several reasons, not least of which was Blumberg's not guilty plea. And and the defense at trial was not guilty by reason of insanity.

Where someone has been accused of criminal bibliomania. Before long the writer and suspect are talking. He came up to me at one point and they said, Who the hell are you? And I said, I'm here to write about you as a book collector that that really got his attention Then, on a Saturday morning, when Court was in recess, he called me at my hotel. It was about eight thirty in the morning, and they said these are the exact words Would you like to spend the day in the life of Stephen Blumberg?

I said, are you allowed to do this? Because I don't want to be contributing to some sort of violation of his uh bail. He said, no, no, he said, I just can't go to any bookstores. So we we went and uh we spent that day together. So Blumberg cruises. Over to the Embassy Suites Hotel, not in a horse and buggy, but a 1960s Cadillac to pick up his new friend. Their first stop was the old red brick house at 116 North Jefferson Street, where Blumberg lived.

I got pictures of him in the California room and that was so named because he said some of my gr best pickings came from the state of California and all that was left in it, all the bookshelves were still there, except one Pennant from UCal Berkeley that was draped from one of the shells. Then they dropped by one of Blumberg's storage units and made another spontaneous pit stop along the way.

There was a dumpster not far from where the warehouse was. He stopped the car, pulled in. He's coming out of the dumpster with a book. He did say to me at one point, we're driving in the car. He said, Nick, do you think I'm crazy? Says Stephen, no, I don't. But I have to say, I've never seen anyone stop his car in a rush and dive headfirst into a dumpster.

looking for books. I said, people might question that sort of behavior, you know, and he did it. He said, but I no, he said, we rescued a treasure, didn't we? So he did Back in court, one of Bloomberg's longtime friends and accomplices, or associates, who rescued treasures with him for years, was about to take the stand. Maybe frenemy is a more accurate term for Kenny Rhodes. He turned in his old pal for a$56,000 payout. And what he shares on the stand about their adventure.

Right, like his descriptions of how they crisscross the country together. Spending their time selling antiques and stealing stuff. It's worth noting, Blumberg didn't need to steal or even work. He received a trust fund stipend of seventy two thousand dollars a year. That freedom possibly made Rhodes jealous. Whatever the case, Basbaines observed few redeeming qualities. I went up and I introduced myself to him and I said Mr. Rhodes and my so-and-so.

Story. He said, What's in it for me? I said, Oh, just an opportunity to get a balanced story. I said, Because if you don't talk. You come across as a pretty got bad guy. He said, No need to talk, I am a bad guy. This this guy didn't have a decent bone in his body. Sounds like he left a lasting impression. Definitely.

As the trial continues, some of Blumberg's origin stories are also revealed. He grew up in the Twin Cities, during a time when 19th century homes were being abandoned or slated for demolition. So he became obsessed with rescuing some of these artifacts. ironwork, intricate stained glass windows. And he collected doorknobs. He had a hundred thousand doorknobs, or whatever the number was. At first, amassing books,

was born out of his other collecting. He sought them as a reference to learn more about antiques. Blumberg's most treasured books were focused on Americana, and what you might call his appreciation For the Victorian Era. Blumberg's attorneys went a step or two beyond appreciation, suggesting that Blomberg actually believed he was a guardian of the past and was locked in a time warp. Quote, emotionally, mentally,

And even physically to the point of wearing Victorian underwear. I can't speak to the underwear, but you know, he he wore calashes, you know, with snaps on him. I mean the old Uh so he's eccentric. And when he was asked to draw pictures of himself, he always drew the same picture of a Edwardian guy with a beard. Bloomberg was known for wearing a hidden pouch filled with gold coins dangling from the inside of his oversized coat. Prepared just in case the country's economic system collapsed.

Well in addition to psychiatrists, other witnesses for the defense testified that Blumberg's drive to collect old things was lifelong. She said he was this grubby little boy, came on a bicycle, and she said well. Did did he know his antiques and he used to climb up on roofs to get a weather vane or something like that off the top of a house? In court, the jury also heard about how Blumberg perfected his skills at other types of stunts.

as he broke into libraries to steal books. He was very light, he was like a spider man. He was climbing up an elevator shaft someplace in California and all of a sudden the elevators started coming down. And he said he only escaped being crushed by uh wedging himself into one of these recesses on one of the floors and as the elevator went by. It was almost as if no building was secure enough. He studied and he understood uh alarm systems, detection systems, he knew how to bypass Alarms.

There were huge rings of keys shown as evidence at the trial. He would sneak into the library and he would find where the keys were stored. Tim Pyatt can attest to that. I had like a jailer's thing of keys to get into all the storage areas. Yeah, one place I went, the librarian kept all his keys in his desk, so I just stole them and had them duplicated to make it easier to get in and out. I just jumped right up, I'm like, Oh my gosh, that was me in Oregon. Talk about playing the long game.

had duplicates made so he can come back at any time he wanted. That's what you call a Victorian shopping spree. One of the most crucial steps in the checklist of thievery was removing any evidence about The book was from. And he employed all sorts of methods. Yeah, because if you're walking out with a book that has stuff in it, you know, they're going to identify it as one of theirs. So he had like a Uh sandpaper he would

he would scrape off the identification of the the name. If there was a pocket he had stuff that could dissolve it and take out he had a stamp that would put in he would stamp at University of Minnesota. So he could say, Oh I'm sorry, that's my copy. I brought it in with me. Remember when he was nabbed at UC Riverside? He made the stamp disappear. He chewed that rubber stamp and swallowed it. And I asked him, I said, Did you actually do that? He says, How else was I gonna get rid of that? I mean

That's commitment. One of the other curious practices he had for removing book plates involved spit. He would lick them. I mean saliva. He would lick them or he would do other things. But once he removed the book plates, He didn't throw'em away. He kept his favorites kind of like a trophy, the way a game hunter might hang elk antlers on their wall. So it was very selective. Meanwhile, do you know what we haven't gotten to figure out?

Uh, if Victorian underwear is glorified long johns or something that I've never imagined before.

Uh you know, I'm I'm curious about that too, but I was actually thinking more specifically, what happened to the thousands of stolen books? So the FBI feared it might take years before they were able to match twenty-three thousand books to their rightful owners. So they rented a Nebraska warehouse and spent eleven thousand dollars on shelving alone. Then

Fate stepped in. There was an article in USA Today about the books that had been found in Otumwa, Iowa. And one of the things included in the article was the FBI agent was quoted as saying that they thought it would be difficult to get the books and the libraries back together again. And we thought that that would be a good opportunity for OCLC with our database of bibliographic records and location. to Lendah. That's Kate Nevins with OCLC.

Formerly known as the Online Computer Library Center, OCLC created the most comprehensive database of library collections, even before the dawn of the internet. So she sends four of their employees and sets up 10 computer workstations. They also put a call out to librarians to help and ended up getting around 40 volunteers. I'm Sandy Jones. I'm a senior product analyst here at OCLC. Nice long history here. Jones says it was a fun gig for a month.

Even if conditions weren't the most spig and span. We were in um an abandoned office storage space. in, you know, kind of downtown Omaha. Once all of the volunteers started arriving, it it just became a busy place. It was dirty these materials. They're old, they're crumbly, they're dusty. There was a like a garage type facility off to one side and that's where there was a rather large collection of antique door knobs that were

kind of box and they were stored in there. There was a first edition of Winnie the Pooh. You know, I mean what a fascinating item to actually hold. Blumberg even offered to help share information about the provenance of some of the books and hopes of leniency in court. It was also a way to see his beloved collection One last time.

He said that, but I was saying goodbye to them. He spent the day going through the books. He was with his books all day. Blumberg didn't interact much with the volunteers, but he did talk with some of the librarians who were seeking to locate their rare books. Including John Sharp from Duke University. At one point Steven went up and he started talking to him and he said, You know, I had no idea that I would hurt so many people and I'm sorry for that.

And uh Jean Sharp looked at him and said, Well, how many books did you take from us anyway? You only got twenty five or thirty, said twenty five or thirty? He said, more like four or five hundred. And Sharp says he could have collapsed. In the end, it took a little over a month to connect most of the books to the rightful owners, versus what the FBI had initially estimated to be two years. Many of the affected institutions sent staff to Nebraska to pick up their books, which included

Officer Stephen Huntsbury. I hope this shows up. Just trying to give you an idea of the amount of books that are involved here. In that shelf right there is the Hacklug book. Mm-hmm. Which is supposed to be about uh fifty thousand dollars. Some of the inconobula.

The jury was finally ready to share their verdict in July of nineteen ninety-one. Like his biographer, they also failed to see Blumberg as insane. That they didn't have the case for very long at all. He was found guilty on four counts transporting stolen property. The judge sentenced him to 71 months.

And if you're good at math, you know that's nearly six years in prison. He was also slapped with a two hundred thousand dollar fine. There were, of course, two А ранжов реакція сім very light to me at the time, just given the amount of Yes, he was a cultural fellow. But uh he hadn't killed anyone. Everything he stole was recovered and returned.

and I'm not saying he didn't deserve to be punished for his crimes. But you have to weigh things. I'm not that sympathetic. He stole stuff, took very valuable historical materials, kept them from the public, left a hole in history. At least one person was left feeling genuinely sorry for the book thief. Remember Matthew McHugh? He was the keeper of the books, so

So what is that? That's that seem I mean it's not a it doesn't seem a very effective uh criminal enterprise. It's it seems more like he has a mental health issue. It I d I I felt bad about the whole thing. A definite takeaway from all this is Don't piss off. Or underestimate the Librarians. This man has insulted all of us that run libraries. and to her

I wouldn't beat my brains out too much because let me tell you something. You know, this is a senior agent with the FBI. He said, this guy is a very professional, competent criminal. I'm not so sure if they buried and buried these books in a twenty foot pit and encased it in concrete that he wouldn't have found a way in there. 'Cause he was that good, you know, he just decided that what he wanted was books. Sadly, Officer Stephen Huntsbury died a couple years ago.

His friend Eileen Brady felt Huntsbury never received his due for helping to stop the book thief. Because he was a campus cop, he didn't get recognition, he should have. But he did receive some notice in the form of awards. speaking engagements, and a promotion to sergeant after Blumberg's arrest. His crimes served as a wake-up call. So much so that you wish you could retroactively buy stock in some of these security companies.

There's a lot of things I'd retroactively wish I could buy stock in. Blumberg's heists would be next to impossible to pull off today. So he might just retain his Guinness Book of World Records title as the most prolific book thief. After serving four and a half years in prison, Blumberg also went from book collector to actually appearing in one. Specifically, chapter 13 of Nicholas Basvain's book, A Gentle Madness. Bibliophiles, Bibliomains, and the Eternal Passion for Books.

Funny enough, since then, Blumberg has been picked up on various parole violations for stealing antiques, but has not been re-arrested for any book crimes. And one of the conditions of his parole was that if he did enter a library or even a bookstore, He would need to pass the clerk a note saying, I am a book thief. Okay, I've heard of people getting kicked out of bars, but a literary badge of shame? That's impressive. On the next episode.

We unravel a mystery about an unexplained disappearance. Nobody knew what was really happening. Is this woman, first of all, is she alive? That's next week on ScamTown. ScamTown is an Apple original podcast produced by FunMeter. New episodes come out each Monday. If you want to check out a few extras from our Find us at funmeter official. The show is hosted and executive produced by us. And I'm James Lee Hernandez. Kathleen Horrin produced this episode.

Mark Hay was our researcher. Our co-executive producers are Shannon Pence, Nicole Loffer, and Matt Kaye. The show was edited and sound designed by Jude Brewer. Final mixing by Ben. Music for the podcast was composed by James. Additional music by Five Alarm. The production would like to thank manuscripts, archives, and special collections at Washington State University Libraries, Eileen Brady, and OCLC. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.