Steve Reed wanted to build a Harrisburg home for Wyatt Earps pistol and other artefacts. On Monday he stands trial, charged with receiving stolen property
An obsession with the wild west compelled then mayor Steve Reed to scour the country for artefacts and plan for a museum to house them all in the unlikely location of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
The museum never came close to being built, and on Monday prosecutors and Reeds lawyers will begin to pick a jury for the former mayors trial on 112 counts of receiving stolen property.
Investigators say they recovered some 1,800 artefacts, many from Reeds home, and jurors will hear about dozens of them. They include stagecoach equipment, saddles, a dice game known as chuck-a-luck, copies of the Tombstone Epitaph newspaper, knives and a gun collection that includes a weapon once owned by Wyatt Earp and a Whorehouse Box w/pin fire revolver.
Reeds lawyer, Henry Hockeimer Jr, said his client, who is dealing with what he described as serious health issues, denies the allegations.
Suffice to say that we believe the evidence at trial will show that Mr Reed did not steal anything and was in fact in lawful possession of the items the attorney generals office charged him with, Hockeimer said.
As to why Reed is charged with receiving stolen property, as opposed to theft, Hockeimer said prosecutors never have completely articulated their theory.
Reed, a Democrat, had won re-election six times and received plaudits for revitalising dingy downtown Harrisburg. A centrepiece of his economic development strategy was a planned network of museums to draw tourists, including a civil war museum that did get built.
The wild west museum was clearly his pet project, an effort he continued to push even after it became public and attracted derision and pointed questions about the costs, which were paid by a city fund that Reed controlled.
A grand jury report issued nearly two years ago described Reeds compulsion to buy artefacts as an almost pathological preoccupation.
A former spokesman for Reed, Randy King, told the grand jury Reed would send so many boxes back from buying trips they would sometimes clog the mayors office, making it difficult for city employees to move.
King testified that city officials tried to stop Reed, telling him: Youve got to stop this, youve got to cut it out, its just going to kill your career, but said Reed would not listen, the grand jury wrote. He would simply repeat to them that he was almost finished.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/22/trial-pennsylvania-mayor-wild-west-memorabilia