The United States Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced charges against nine men on Thursday, alleging that they had conspired over 20 years to "break into multiple museums and other institutions to steal priceless works of art, sports memorabilia, and other objects." Eight of the nine individuals have since turned themselves in.
Those individuals have been accused of stealing a number of notable baseball memorabilia, including World Series rings that belonged to Yogi Berra; individual awards that belonged to Berra and Roger Maris; and a jersey that belonged to Christy Mathewson.
Here's the full list of baseball items provided by the Department of Justice:
A Christy Mathewson jersey and two contracts signed by Mathewson stolen in 1999 from Keystone College in Factoryville, Pennsylvania;Nine (9) World Series rings, seven (7) other championship rings, and two (2) MVP plaques awarded to Yogi Berra, worth over $1,000,000 stolen in 2014 from the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center, Little Falls, New Jersey;The Hickok Belt and MVP Trophy awarded to Roger Maris, stolen in 2016 from the Roger Maris Museum, Fargo, North Dakota;The DOJ alleges that the nine men "melted the memorabilia down into easily transportable metal discs or bars," and that they "sold the raw metal to other individuals in the New York City area for hundreds or thousands of dollars, but significantly less than the stolen items would be worth at fair market value."
All of the nine accused individuals are men who were aged in their late 40s or early 50s.
