Man pleads guilty to drunkenly stealing the thumb from a $4.5million sculpture
In 2017, Michael Rohana attended an ugly Christmas jumper party at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute. An act of drunken stupidity led the then-24-year-old to sneak into the ‘Terracotta Warriors of the First Emperor’ exhibition, where he posed for a selfie with a 2,000-year-old statue, The Cavalryman.
He proceeded to snap the thumb from the $4.5million piece before pocketing it. A few weeks later, on January 8th, 2018, the museum noticed the sculpture’s missing body part, leading them to review security footage. Images of Rohana in a bright green jumper were found, as were the party attendees’ credit card details, resulting in his arrest.
When the FBI showed up at his house, Rohana instantly confessed to the drunken crime and handed the finger back, which had been stored in his desk drawer.
Friends of Rohana testified that he bragged about stealing the finger on the ride home from the after-hours party, even going as far as to share images of it on Snapchat.
In April 2019, the case resulted in a mistrial when the jury could not decide how harshly to prosecute Rohana. He was faced with potential charges of “theft and concealment of an object of cultural heritage from a museum,” which carries a 30-year jail sentence. However, the jury couldn’t determine how much the thumb was worth now that it was separated from the rest of the terracotta sculpture.
During his trial, Rohana stated, “Every time I see this video now, I’m trying to figure out: ‘What was going through your mind? What were you thinking?’ I don’t know how I could have been so stupid.”
Rohana is set to plead guilty at Philadelphia’s federal court on April 17th for charges of “interstate trafficking.” This will result in two years of prison time and a $20,000 fine.
