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Brothers who stole stamps sentenced to prison
Wednesday, September 27, 2000 By Torsten Ove, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
John and James Kennedy were stamp collectors, after a fashion.
Problem was, they collected other people's stamps.
For 25 years, the brothers gleaned names from coin and stamp publications, including a 1980 American Philatelic Society members list, then ransacked collectors' homes in Pennsylvania and six other states.
Yesterday in federal court, U.S. District Judge Maurice Cohill Jr. sent them both to prison.
John, 59, of Morgantown, W.Va., got 27 months and was ordered to pay nearly $300,000 in restitution to four insurance companies and four collectors, including a 76-year-old Mt. Lebanon man who lost $150,000 in stamps and other valuables in a 1997 burglary.
James, 60, of Wakeman, Ohio, was sentenced to 21 months in prison and ordered to pay $74,000 in restitution.
The brothers called the homes of collectors repeatedly until they were sure no one was home, then broke in, tore up the premises and made off with stamps, coins and other collectibles.
"What they didn't steal, they tried to destroy," said the Mt. Lebanon collector, who doesn't want to be identified for fear of being victimized again.
In all, the Kennedys stole from about 1,000 collectors over 25 years.
Ephraim Day, a former police officer in charge of theft investigation for the State College-based American Philatelic Society, said it was one of the largest and longest-running stamp thefts in history.
Day said the Kennedys preyed on stamp collectors in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. A stamp collector's publication, Linn's Stamp News, indicated they had been convicted of similar crimes in the early 1980s.
In addition to the federal charges, the brothers will likely face state theft and burglary charges.
The local federal indictment involved five cases. An Etna collector whose house was burglarized in May 1996 lost stamp albums and folders with sheets of stamps worth between $10,000 and $15,000.
Fourteen months later, the brothers broke into the Bethlehem home of a retired Lehigh University physics professor who was on vacation. They ransacked the house and took $60,000 in stamps and $40,000 in jewelry and silverware.
Investigators also linked the brothers to coin and stamp thefts in Mt. Lebanon in December 1997, Fort Wayne, Ind., in December 1998 and State College in March 1999.
The Mt. Lebanon theft broke the case open.
A friend notified the collector that his stamps were on sale at a flea market in Willoughby, Ohio. The FBI and Mt. Lebanon police tracked the flea market purchase back through several transactions to the Kennedy brothers.
The Mt. Lebanon collector testified before Cohill yesterday while Assistant U.S. Attorney Shaun Sweeney showed a videotape of his ransacked house.
In addition to the stamps that were stolen, the Kennedys took a gold medallion belonging to his ex-wife and his late father's signet ring and a valuable railroad watch.
He said the stress of having his home burglarized has traumatized him, dredging up memories of the bombing missions he flew over Europe in World War II and the time he was shot down over Belgium.
"I'd like to say," said John Kennedy, "I'm sorry for the grief and hardship I caused him."
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