ALISON FRANKEL: HOW THE GOVERNMENT WON THE SWITT 1933 DOUBLE EAGLE CASE

In a way, my favorite case of the summer was over before it started.

A couple weeks back, I wrote about the start of a Philadelphia federal court trial to determine ownership of 10 exceedingly rare 1933 Double Eagle gold coins. Granted, I have a particular affection for the case because I wrote a book about the legal furor around another 1933 Double Eagle, which ended with the coin being sold for $7.6 million at an auction in 2006. But the Philadelphia trial promised to revive the fascinating story of the 1933 Double Eagles, which were minted just as the U.S. was coming off the gold standard and were never supposed to have made their way into private hands. The daughter and sons of a Philly jeweler named Israel Switt claimed to have found 10 1933 Double Eagles in Switt's safe deposit box long after his death; the U.S. government asserted the coins had been stolen from the Mint and sued to get them back in a forfeiture action.

The trial ended this week when jurors sided with the government, finding that prosecutors Jacqueline Romero and Nancy Rue proved the coins had been stolen. Judge Legrome Davis must still rule on whether the government or Switt's family owns the coins, but that ruling is considered a formality: The 10 1933 Double Eagles will return to the U.S. government.

That result was foreordained by Judge Davis's omnibus evidentiary ruling on July 5, just before the trial started. Israel Switt's descendents, the Langbord family, wanted to keep the focus of the case on the chaos surrounding the recall of gold coins, and contradictory instructions the Mint received about handling the half-million 1933 Double Eagles that had been minted before it was deemed illegal for Americans to own gold. Their aim was to show that in those tumultuous times, coins might legitimately have slipped out of the Mint.

Government prosecutors, on the other hand, wanted to bring in evidence of Israel Switt's suspected involvement in the theft of 1933 Double Eagles from the Mint. To do so, prosecutors listed as trial exhibits a wealth of 70-year-old documents, including Secret Service reports on a 1940's investigation of how the Double Eagles got out. The agents who investigated the case concluded the coins had been stolen by a Mint employee later convicted of fencing coins. The agents also believed, according to the documents, that Switt was involved in the theft. The Secret Service asked the Justice Department to pursue a criminal case against Switt and two Mint employees, but the statute of limitations had run.

The Langbords' lawyers, led by Barry Berke of Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, filed a pair of motions to limit the evidence the government was permitted to introduce here and here, raising the sort of arcane legal arguments that can only arise in a case involving events that took place decades ago and documents created by people who are long dead. The Secret Service reports, Kramer Levin argued, consisted of hearsay piled on hearsay, which made them impermissible even under the ancient documents exception to the hearsay rules. And many of the government's other documents, the Kramer briefs assert, failed to satisfy ancient documents requirements, since they weren't original documents but copies of originals that couldn't be located.

Judge Davis, however, let just about everything in: the Secret Service reports, documents from Switt's 1934 prosecution for illegal possession of gold coins (not the 1933 Double Eagles, but other coins); Mint records of questionable accuracy; a 1940s ruling in another 1933 Double Eagle case that none of the coins could have left the Mint legally. The judge said he would give the jury instructions on the context in which they were permitted to consider some of the documents, but his ruling amounted to an insurmountable obstacle for the Langbords. There was just too much government evidence casting doubt on Israel Switt's character.

To read the complete article, see: How the government won the $75 ml Double Eagle rare coin case (newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2011/07_
-_July/How_the_government_won_the_$75_ml_Double_Eagle_rare_coin_case/)

Wayne Homren, Editor

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