Woman on Trial for Alleged Theft and Sale of Glenn Gould Papers | Playbill

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Classic Arts News Woman on Trial for Alleged Theft and Sale of Glenn Gould Papers A New York jury was asked yesterday by Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Martin to convict Barbara Moore on charges of stealing Glenn Gould mementos from the Gould collection at the Canadian Library and Archives in Ottawa, to which she had access to in the late 1980s.
Moore, a 62-year-old college professor from Austin, Texas, was arrested last May on charges of having stolen items worth thousands of dollars, including photographs, books, compositions, audio and video recordings, letters and personal items of Gould's such as hats and gloves.

Moore's lawyer said the Gould items in his client's possession were uncatalogued materials given to her legally by Stephen Willis, the late curator of the library's archives, according to the Associated Press. The judge, however, asserted that the stamps found on many of the items indicated they had been made a permanent part of the archives. Dr. Timothy Maloney, head of the Canadian Library's music division, reportedly testified that Willis would never have given those items away.

Moore is charged with third-degree criminal possession of stolen property, fourth-degree grand larceny and third-degree attempted grand larceny; she faces up to seven years in prison if convicted on the stolen property possession charge and up to four years if convicted on the others, according to the AP.

Moore sold a few of the Gould items to New York dealer Roger Gross, who was reportedly unaware the items were stolen, in December 2004. A Gould researcher in British Columbia spotted the items for sale on the Internet and alerted the police last December. The New York Police Department's Cyber Crimes Unit recovered the stolen items and referred the case to the Manhattan district attorney's office.

Gould, a legendary performer and recording artist whose work is preserved on such discs as his two iconic versions of Bach's Goldberg Variations, was born in 1932 to a violinist father and pianist mother. He died in 1982 at age 50.

 
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