Highlights Of Russ Pritchard Jr. Federal Trial
By Deborah Fitts
(Feb./March ’02 issue) PHILADELPHIA, Pa.

The following are highlights of the trial of Russ Pritchard Jr. in largely chronological order:
The trial got underway on Monday, Jan. 14, with selection of a 12-member jury. Testimony began Tuesday, when prosecutor Robert Goldman started to weave the saga of the Confederate uniform theft with a series of prosecution witnesses.

The uniform
Bill Day, owner of the former Hunt-Phelan house-museum in Memphis, recounted how, in the fall of 1996, he asked his cousin Pritchard Jr. to look at a vast collection of items that he had inherited along with the house.

Pritchard Jr. selected two uniforms, one a militia jacket and the other a frock coat and pants of Day's great-great grandfather, Col. William R. Hunt, and said he would have them authenticated by his son, Russ Pritchard III, in Bryn Mawr, Pa.

In January 1997, Day testified, that having not heard back, he phoned to ask about his ancestor's uniform. Pritchard Jr. told him that it was a costume, not authentic, and that it had been given to Goodwill Industries. When Day called Pritchard III he was told the same thing.

Toward the end of 1998, Day's sister stumbled upon the uniform on the Internet, when she was hunting for antique clothing. It was on the website of high-end relic dealer Gary Hendershott of Little Rock, Ark., and was identified as the uniform of Col. Hunt. It was described as the finest Confederate frock coat in existence, for sale for $70,000.

Day called the FBI. They had him call Pritchard Jr. again, and recorded the conversation. In it, Pritchard Jr. pointed out that the coat had gold stars on the collar, which Day's coat did not.

"That's not your uniform, I'm sure of it," Pritchard Jr. told Day.

Day called Hendershott and learned that he sold the uniform to the Tennessee State Museum for $67,500. Day went to view the coat and decided that indeed it was not his uniform, on account of the stars on the collar. He wrote a letter to the museum to that effect in November 1999.

The witnesses

Maryland textile conservator Fonda Thomsen testified that in November 1996 the two Pritchards brought the Hunt uniform to her. Pritchard Jr. told her it belonged to Col. Hunt, who he said was his ancestor, and he said he and his son intended to keep the family heirloom.

Thomsen took photos of the uniform, which were produced in court. There were no stars on the coat. In cross-examination, Thomas Bergstrom, Pritchard Jr.'s attorney, attempted to undermine Thomsen's assertion that the coat she saw was the same now on display in the courtroom.

"Moths don't eat holes in the same place on two different uniforms," Thomsen responded.

James Lowe, a jeweler who does work for Tiffany's in New York, testified that he was contacted in early 1997 by the Pritchards' partner at American Ordnance Preservation Association (AOPA), George Juno, who asked him to make copies of a gold star. He testified that the stars on the collar of the coat in the courtroom were the ones that he made.
Dennis Cooke of Massachusetts, who does uniform restoration, testified that in 1997 Pritchard III sent him four stars and the coat, to have the stars put on.

Stone Mountain, Ga., relic dealer John Sexton, who was affiliated with AOPA in their advertising, testified that he first saw the coat in 1997 when it was displayed on the AOPA table at a relic show that was attended by Pritchard Jr.
Sexton bought the uniform the following year for $45,000 and sold it a few months later to Hendershott for $51,500.
Prosecutor Goldman asked Sexton whether any documents were destroyed subsequent to a grand jury subpoena in connection with this case. Sexton testified that Juno went through his records in Stone Mountain and destroyed records relating to AOPA.

(The incident appears to constitute obstruction of justice. Goldman told Sexton, on the stand, "I'll be talking to you later about this." Afterward, Goldman said the testimony came as a surprise. He declined to say whether the incident would be investigated further.)

FBI Agent Robert Whittman testified that he interviewed Pritchard Jr. in 2000, and that Pritchard Jr. told him he had sent the Hunt uniform to his son after getting it from Day and never saw it again until it appeared in Hendershott's catalog.

Les Jensen, curator with the U.S. Army museum system, testified that at a 1997 relic show in Gettysburg he asked to photograph the coat on account of its unusual sleeve markings. His photos show the uniform, labeled as Hunt's, displayed at the AOPA table. Jensen recalled that Pritchard Jr. was present.

The following year, Hendershott asked Jensen to authenticate the uniform when Hendershott was in the process of buying it from Sexton.

Two character witnesses were called on behalf of Pritchard Jr. — Jeff DeHart, owner of Conestoga Auction House in Manheim, Pa., and John Craft, executive director of the Civil War Library & Museum in Philadelphia. They asserted that Pritchard Jr. is law-abiding.

Pritchard testimony

When Pritchard Jr. took the stand, he denied telling Day that the uniform was a fake and had been given away. If Day was told that, he said, it must have been by his son. He testified that he told his son either to buy the uniform from Day or return it, and said he assumed that his son had followed through accordingly.

Pritchard Jr. said that he had come to learn, sadly, that his son was responsible for numerous instances of fraud and theft. He said his own reputation had suffered as a result of what his son had done, and he had lost considerable money of his own that he had pumped into AOPA. Pritchard III's Dec. 21 guilty plea (see related story) was disclosed to the jury.

(Goldman said afterward that Pritchard III cooperated in the investigation of his father and was prepared to testify against him, but "we made a calculated decision not to call him" on account of his admitted perjury.)

Pritchard Jr. recalled seeing the uniform at relic shows in Gettysburg and Baltimore, and said he assumed that his son had bought it from Day. In cross-examination, he said he never asked his son about it.

Goldman pointed out to Pritchard Jr. that in a tape-recorded conversation he told Day that the coat sold to Hendershott couldn't be Day's, because it had gold stars on it — the stars that Juno ordered from the jeweler and Pritchard III had sewn on by Cooke.

In questioning by Bergstrom, his attorney, Pritchard Jr. contended that he is not an expert in uniforms, and had scarcely looked at Day's coat.

In cross-examination, Goldman noted Pritchard Jr.'s long tenure as curator at the Civil War Library and he produced a $3 million appraisal of uniforms at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond that Pritchard Jr. did for Sotheby's.

Goldman brought out that Pritchard Jr. receives one-third to one-half of the income from the sale of collections that he brings to Conestoga Auction House.

Goldman stacked in front of Pritchard Jr. a pile of books on militaria in which Pritchard Jr. appears as technical adviser.
Goldman expressed skepticism that Pritchard Jr. was unaware, when he selected the uniform from Day's collection, that it would soon be advertised as one of the finest examples of Confederate uniforms in existence.

"Just lucky, I guess," said Goldman wryly.

Testimony ended on Thursday, Jan. 17. The jury deliberated from 2:30 to 4 p.m. and recessed. They resumed the following morning, asked to hear the tape-recorded conversation between Day and Pritchard Jr. again, and at midday returned with the guilty verdict.