Ft. Lauderdale Police Explain How They “Stung” Olympic Medals Thief

By PHillip Whitten

FORT LAUDERDALE, December 16. A substitute janitor with an extensive criminal background was responsible for stealing and fencing more than 100 Olympic medals and other irreplaceable memorabilia from the International Swimming Hall of Fame (ISHOF), Fort Lauderdale police said yesterday at a press conference held at the Hall of Fame.

The Crime
Paul Nichols Christow, 48, who had just been released from a New Jersey prison after serving three years for aggravated assault, had total access to the Hall's impressive Olympic collection when no one else was around. He stole nearly $500,000 worth of gold, silver and bronze, police said. Among the loot was Hollywood star Johnny Weismuller's 1924 medals, a medal from the first modern Olympic Games and an ancient Greek medal.

The Hall of Fame's collection was so large that he operated undetected for months.

In an interview with SwimInfo yesterday, Hall of Fame Executive Director and Curator Bob Duenkel noted that early this month, museum workers noticed some medals missing from a display case. About the same time, an Olympic memorabilia collector from North Carolina contacted the Hall of Fame to say he had just purchased a group of medals on the Internet and ask if the Hall was interested in purchasing them from him.

"When he sent us an e-mail with photos of the items, we realized these were the same items that had been stolen from the Hall."

The collector immediately returned the stolen items to the Hall of Fame, Duenkel added.

Christow made off with the medals by "taking something from a display case and replacing that spot with a medal of lesser value from another case or perhaps from storage," Duenkel explained.

The Thief
ISHOF officials had hired Christow after his brother, Glenn Christow, had broken his leg in an auto accident. Glenn Christow had worked at ISHOF for more than five years and was a trusted worker, Duenkel said.

Police then traced the theft to Christow, a heroin addict. They set up a sting, caught him on tape trying to sell more Olympic goods, and arrested him last week.

The Investigation
Investigators recovered about half of what was stolen and hope to find the rest.

In yesterday's press conference, police said that Paul Christow had posed as a lawyer looking to liquidate an anonymous family's estate. Marty Bookston, of Double Eagle Rare Coins in Hollywood, Florida, gave the man $250 for two medals and posted them on eBay for an opening bid of $9.99 apiece. He hoped to sell them for $400 or $500 each.

The medals caught the attention of North Carolina collector Jeffery Ensminger, who contacted the coin dealer and told him he was interested in buying the man's entire Olympic collection and asked him to take the medals off eBay.

Unaware the goods were stolen, Ensminger bought 50 Olympic medals for $1,700 and quickly sold one to a California collector for $10,000. Ironically, police said, the California collector thought the medal was stolen and returned it to Ensminger.

Ensminger knew medals belonging to Weismuller were on display at the Swimming Hall of Fame, so he contacted Duenkel to ask if ISHOF would like to buy the medals he had aquired.

Duenkel took one look at the photos Ensminger sent and told the collector "the items were all items that were here and had been stolen."

The collector and coin dealer agreed to return the stolen items and to work with police to snare Christow, police said.

The Sting
Last Thursday, Bookston met with Christow at a hotdog stand in Dania Beach. Bookston wore a wire and carried a gun for protection. He told Christow he'd found a buyer to take the rest of the merchandise Christow wanted to "liquidate."

"Our main objective was to recover everything," Bookston said. "We tried to figure out how to get this guy back in here so he didn't get spooked, sell them to someone else and they'd be lost forever."

Police officers moved in and arrested Christow after he retrieved a box full of Olympic medals he intended to sell to Bookston.

Christow was charged with two counts of dealing in stolen property and two counts of grand theft over $100,000.

"I grew up with Johnny Weismuller on TV," said Gerry Machurick, the burglary detective who worked the case, "so to be a part of preserving history is pretty incredible."

The Aftermath
When we spoke with Duenkel yesterday, he noted that police were negotiating with Christow's lawyer, Raag Singhal, who said Christow was willing to work with the police to get the rest of the collection back. If prosecutors won't cut Christow a deal now because of publicity surrounding the case, it may be harder to get him to cooperate, Singhal said.

Duenkel said the remaining missing items are valued at "more than $100,000 and, of course, are irreplaceable."

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