Antiquities dealer has colourful, checkered career

By: Patrick Mcgroarty And Alexandra Olson, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MUNICH, Germany - Leonardo Patterson made his first archeological find at age seven in a yam field in his native Costa Rica - a piece of clay pottery his cousin said could be thousands of years old. It launched a lifelong fascination with pre-Columbian art, and a career checkered by charges of smuggling and selling forgeries. Patterson has become known to many in the close-knit world of collectors and curators as a wily salesman with a nervous stutter and humble demeanour. "The guy is legendary in the field," said Michael Coe, a retired Yale anthropology professor who told authorities that a 1997 Patterson exhibit in Spain included possible fakes. "He has managed to have a career that is just unbelievable." In April, Munich police seized more than 1,000 Aztec,... [read full story]