Nevertheless, the panel says, the orchestra trumpeted the $50 million figure, using it in a press release and season brochures, leading the public and some less active members of the board of trustees to accept it as accurate. At the same time, the Instrument Committee told some members of the board that the value of the instruments was about half of Axelrod's estimate, when in fact the committee believed it might be as low as $15.3 million.
In addition, according to the report, some members of the committee had heard rumors that Axelrod was already under investigation for overvaluing other gifts of rare instruments, but those rumors were not investigated or shared with the full committee or the board of trustees. Axelrod has since pleaded guilty to unrelated tax fraud charges in a deal that will allow him to avoid prosecution over the NJSO sale. But he may still face charges over the donation of four other instruments to the Smithsonian Institution.
Despite all of these conclusions, the report adds, the instruments themselves‹probably the finest owned by an orchestra in the world‹are "a unique asset, of which the musicians and orchestra should be justly proud."