Stolen rare maps will find their way home

Eight maps purloined from the Houghton Library at Harvard University will be returned to the institution in September , when E. Forbes Smiley III is sentenced for their thefts, according to a US Justice Department spokesman.

The eight rare maps were among 97 that Smiley admitted in US District Court in Connecticut last month to having stolen from libraries around the country, including the Boston Public Library, and in England . Five other maps missing from the Houghton have not been accounted for.

Houghton Library owned one of the oldest of the stolen maps, a drawing of the New World by Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés dated 1524 . Most of the maps stolen from the Houghton were cut out of bound books.

Harvard College Library's director of communications, Beth Brainard, called the loss -- and the recovery of eight of the 13 missing maps -- immeasurable.

``All the maps were significant," she said. ``That's why he stole them. But there are two kinds of value we place on them -- what they might get on the market, and the incredible value to scholarship."

Smiley, 50, once one of the country's most respected dealers in rare maps, pleaded guilty on June 22 to one count of theft of items of cultural heritage, relating to the 97 maps, estimated to be worth $3 million . He has been free on bond pending sentencing.

He was arrested last summer in New Haven in connection with thefts from Yale University's Beinecke Library. The subsequent investigation uncovered the other losses, including at the Boston library and the Houghton. Neither Smiley nor his lawyer could be reached last week for comment on the case.

Brainard said that in reviewing its holdings, the Houghton discovered 13 maps were missing, adding, ``We're still not clear where the other five are." She said she could not discuss specific security procedures at the Houghton Library, which allows visitors to view its collections after signing in. She said library thefts commonly go unnoticed for long periods.

``Our collections are so vast something can be missing for a while, until the next person looks for it and it's not there. We have 15 million items in our collections."

Smiley could receive from just under five years to a maximum of 10 years in prison, said Justice Department spokesman Tom Carson , and ordered to pay up to $1.6 million in restitution.

Carson said that when Smiley pleaded guilty last month in New Haven, it was decided as part of the plea agreement that he would sell some of his property to help make restitution. Smiley owns a home on 4.3 acres in Chilmark on Martha's Vineyard, assessed at $613,100, and a home in Maine .

Edgartown real estate broker Bruce Stuart said that as of last week, Smiley's Chilmark home was not listed with the island's principal real estate listing service, though it may be listed privately. ``The average price of a home in Chilmark is $1 million," he said. ``If he's got anything nicer than average, he should be able to pay his debt."

In addition to the Cortés map, Smiley also pleaded guilty to removing from the Houghton a 1691 map of North America, Mexico, and the Caribbean by Christien LeClercq; a 1671 map of Lake Superior by Claude Dablon; and a Foster and Hubbard map of New England from 1677 , according to federal court documents.