A 59-year-old man was charged in Germany on Monday on suspicion of trying to sell stolen diaries and other items that had belonged to John.The suspect, identified by the Berlin prosecutors’ office only as Erhan G., in 2014 commissioned an auction house in Berlin to sell the items, receiving an upfront payment of 785,000 euros ($884,000), the office said in a statement.
German prosecutors on Monday charged a 59-year-old man for the theft of numerous objects, including diaries, stolen from the estate of John Lennon.
The accused, identified as Erhan G., will face trial over charges of theft and fraud.
He is accused of having received an advance of 785,150 euros in October 2014 from an auction house for the items that had been stolen from the New York apartment of Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono. G. was arrested in Berlin last year. At the time, prosecutors said he had “given a broad confession” in the case. Beside Lennon’s diaries, police last year recovered from the bankrupt Berlin auction house letters, postcards, drawings, a live recording of a Beatles concert, as well as the musician’s glasses. The objects were allegedly stolen by Ono’s driver in 2006. The driver, Koral Karsan, lives in Turkey and German police have been unable to detain him.
The former chauffeur worked for Ono from 1995 to 2006. He already spent 60 days in jail in 2007 in the United States for trying to blackmail Ono.
Prosecutors did not say how G. obtained the stolen objects from Karsan.
Agence France-Presse