Not really. If you read the details of the story, their father clearly paid someone to steal the coins for him. I don’t know why so much of the coverage presents this as some kind of victory for the little guy:
While prosecutors argued to jurors in 2011 that Switt must have stolen the coins with help from a Mint insider, Berke said he could have traded his scrap gold for them.
The U.S. Department of Justice said it was reviewing its options after Friday’s ruling. A Treasury spokeswoman had no comment.
Switt admitted to the Secret Service in 1944 that he had possessed and sold a set of nine other Double Eagles, which were recovered and destroyed. The surviving Farouk coin is believed to have been a 10th coin from that batch.
The Mint sent a pair of 1933 Double Eagles to the Smithsonian Institution for its U.S. coin collection.
He told the feds he “didn’t remember” where he got the coins. Uh huh.
