Giant, 2,000-pound antiquity may be hauled into a Los Angeles federal courtroom for the trial of an alleged smuggler.
Prosecutors can bring an 18-foot-long, 8-foot-tall, ancient mosaic of Hercules, allegedly looted from war-torn Syria, to a downtown Los Angeles courtroom as evidence in the trial of a Palmdale man charged with illegally importing the antiquity to the U.S., a federal judge ruled Thursday Jan. 26.
Authorities say the relic, which is 18 feet long and eight feet tall and weighs one ton, was looted from war-torn Syria and smuggled via Turkey. It depicts Hercules and other figures from Roman mythology. Federal prosecutors argued that while there is a plethora of photographic evidence of the mosaic in its various stages, photographs are “inadequate and cannot convey the size, scope, and other features of the mosaic.”
The defendant countered that viewing the mosaic is irrelevant to the charged offense and that seeing the mosaic as it currently exists would be confusing, misleading and prejudicial because of the restoration and, thus, the item no longer is in the same state as when Alcharihi purchased it.
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