Decades after someone stole artifacts from museums in Pennsylvania and along the East Coast, investigators were able to solve the case with the help of an Adams County antiques dealer.
An elderly Montgomery County man was sentenced to one day in prison for selling a rare Revolutionary-era rifle that he stole from a Pennsylvania museum decades.
Thomas Gavin, 78, of Pottstown, was sentenced Tuesday for the theft of a rare antique rifle during a visit to the Valley Forge State Park Museum in 1971. Gavin kept the Christian Oerter flintlock rifle, a relic of the American Revolution, in his barn in Pottstown for decades before selling it to a dealer who recognized its significance. Gavin will spend one day in prison and has been ordered to pay nearly $50,000 in fines and restitution. The rifle was returned to its owners and is now displayed at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia.
An elderly Montgomery County man was sentenced to one day in prison for selling a rare Revolutionary-era rifle that he stole from a Pennsylvania museum decades.