back proved this was North Carolina’s long-lost copy, looted during the Civil War. When the Constitution Center’s president learned that the document was a spoil of war—stolen property—he called the governor of Pennsylvania for advice. The Pennsylvania governor called the governor of North Carolina, who told him that the state would not pay to have it returned. An aide to the governor of North Carolina called the U.S. attorney and got the FBI involved. Moving swiftly—just that morning, the agent in Raleigh said—federal prosecutors in North Carolina had convinced a magistrate to sign a seizure warrant for the Bill of Rights.
Things were racing at light speed in North Carolina, the agent told me, with attention at the highest levels. “The U.S. attorney and the governor here are personally involved.”
“OK,” I said. “So where is the Bill of Rights now?”
“We don’t know.” Although the FBI suspected it might be in Pratt’s office or home in Connecticut, it was too risky to try a search, he said. I understood. If the agents on the raid didn’t find the Bill of Rights in either spot, the people holding it might get spooked and take the document underground again.
I dialed the president of the Constitution Center, Joe Torsella, and arranged to meet him the following morning in the office of the lawyer negotiating the deal for the museum.
That night, the FBI office in Raleigh faxed me eighty pages of documents forwarded by North Carolina state archivists, a century-long paper trail that included the newspaper article quoting Shotwell in 1897, the 1925 offer from Reid, and the 1995 offer from Richardson.
At 9 a.m. the next day, Heine and I arrived at the crimson-carpeted legal offices on the thirty-third floor of a modern Philadelphia skyscraper. A receptionist ushered us into a corner office.
Torsella, forty years old, was a rising political star in Philadelphia, a former deputy mayor and confidant of the governor. He had quarterbacked the campaign that raised $185 million in private funds to build the Constitution Center. His wife was Senator Specter’s chief counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee and she aspired to be a federal judge. Torsella did not hide his own ambition to become a congressman or senator.
His lawyer, Stephen Harmelin, was an even bigger fish. He had graduated from Harvard Law School in 1963, the year Torsella was born, and was now the managing partner of Dilworth Paxson, a white-shoe law firm that represented Pennsylvania’s big businesses and power brokers, clients with last names like Annenberg and Otis. The firm’s alumni included judges, a mayor, a governor, state lawmakers, and a United States senator. Harmelin was a man who valued his reputation as a tough but honest and ethical negotiator, someone accustomed to success, million-dollar deals, and discretion.
Torsella looked nervous. Harmelin did not.
“How can we help you?” the lawyer politely asked.
I unfolded the seizure warrant and handed it to Harmelin. He looked surprised and put up his hands, making it clear they wanted no part of a crime, and said, “Whatever you need.” He asked me if we planned to search Pratt’s home and offices, or the offices of his experts and lawyers. “I’ve got the addresses, if you need them,” he offered.
I shook my head. “Too risky.”
They stared at me, silent.
I said, “If we execute a search warrant and fail to find the document, the sellers might get spooked and we might not see it again for a hundred years. They’ve already threatened to take it overseas, you know.”
Harmelin and Torsella hadn’t heard that. I related the saga of Richardson’s cryptic 1995 attempt to sell the Bill of Rights to North Carolina and their mysterious visit to the experts at George Washington in 2000. I showed them Richardson’s offer letter, the one with vague threats that the document might be lost if the nervous sellers felt threatened.
Harmelin and Torsella were angry now. They felt duped and worried aloud that the whiff of scandal might somehow taint their great project. It was the perfect time for my pitch: “We want you to help us get it back. We want you to go through with the deal, have them bring the Bill of Rights here to your office, and we’ll seize it.” I tried to make it sound simple.
Torsella coughed. “You want us to go undercover?”
“Yes. It’s the only way to keep it safe and in the country. The only way.”
Harmelin stood and led Torsella into the hallway. They huddled privately.
When they returned, they said yes. Before we could get into the details, Harmelin did what any good lawyer does—he called a meeting of more lawyers to discuss contingencies, and they spent an hour coming up with things that might go wrong: What if the document is damaged in a scuffle? Who’s liable? What if someone sues the firm for participating in a fraud? What if someone calls the state bar and accuses Harmelin of lying to a fellow lawyer? What if things get out of control or leaked to the press? What if Richardson demands a blanket indemnification clause? Does our firm insurance cover that? What if North Carolina sues the firm? What if…
“Guys!” I finally interrupted. “You’re just coming up with ways it won’t work.” I turned to Harmelin and his $200 necktie. “It doesn’t matter what you say to Richardson. It’s all bullshit anyway. Just say whatever it takes to get him to bring the Bill of Rights to this room. Remember: You won’t have to keep any promises you make.”
This was a hard concept for a lawyer like Harmelin to digest, and he asked me if I wouldn’t prefer to conduct the negotiations myself. I told him it was too late in the game to inject a new player. It might spook Richardson. “I’ll play the role of the buyer,” I said. “I’ll be Bob Clay, patriotic dot-com mogul, eager to donate the Bill of Rights to the new Constitution Center.”
Reluctantly, Harmelin got on the phone with Richardson, and spent the balance of the day pretending to negotiate. At first, there was a lot of throat-clearing legal-speak and I could see it pained him to give in so easily. But by late afternoon, Harmelin began to warm to the role. By the end of the final conversation that Friday, Richardson was asking about the benefactor, the person buying the Bill of Rights for the Constitution Center.
Harmelin winked at me as I listened in on an extension in his skyscraper office. “His name is Bob Clay. Dot- com guy. You can meet when you come up here Tuesday for the closing.”
When he hung up, Harmelin was ebullient, comfortable enough to tease me.
“Agent Wittman?” he said as I headed out the door with Heine. “Do me a favor? If you’re gonna be an Internet hotshot on Tuesday, find yourself a nicer pair of shoes.”
I WASN’T IN the conference room when the closing began.
I wanted Richardson to see familiar faces, get comfortable. So the only people in the room were the three men Richardson had met once before—Harmelin, a rare-documents consultant, and another Dilworth attorney. Inside his jacket, Harmelin carried a cashier’s check for $4 million.
I waited in another room with Torsella. My backup, five FBI agents, including Heine, stood ready nearby.
We didn’t wire the room for audio or video. I thought it would be too much of a hassle to get permission— recording a sting inside a law firm would have created more worry for the Dilworth lawyers and required layers of approval within the FBI. Besides, Richardson didn’t seem like the violent type. If there was real trouble, we’d hear the shouts through the door.
Agents on surveillance reported that Richardson arrived alone and empty-handed. A few minutes later, the agents reported that a courier was on his way to the conference room with a large folio.
I waited a few more minutes and Harmelin fetched me to join him in the conference room. Laid flat on the conference table, beside stacks of fake closing documents, was the Bill of Rights. I made a show of studying it. It was three feet high, written on faded vellum, its texture varying from corner to corner, making some amendments easier to read than others. Considering the parchment’s journey, it was in remarkable condition. Right there, on the bottom, I could make out John Adams’s neat signature in two-inch-high letters.
I turned to Richardson and pumped his hand. I slapped Harmelin on the back. “Gentlemen,” I said, “this is a wonderful day. This will be a great contribution to the National Constitution Center. I’m so pleased to be a part of this.” I turned to Harmelin, giving him a reason to leave. “Steve, we need to get Torsella in here. He needs to see this.”
The plan was to leave me alone with the document expert and Richardson. With the Bill of Rights essentially secured, it was time to try to make a criminal case. I wanted a few minutes with Richardson, to try to draw him into a discussion about the stolen parchment to see what he knew about its mysterious 125-year journey from Raleigh to Philadelphia. With his mind on a $4 million payday, this would present my best opportunity. I planned to start by asking him how careful I really needed to be, whether there were any marks on the document that would
