Dead Sea Scrolls-case convictions mostly upheld by appeals court

The New York Court of Appeals has upheld criminal impersonation and forgery charges against Raphael Golb, who used pseudonyms to discredit and impersonate real academic scholars who studied the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The court dismissed the remaining convictions.

Citing Shakespeare’s Othello (“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls”), Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam wrote in the majority opinion that injury to reputation is within the intent of the statute used to prosecute Golb for criminal impersonation, and that his actions were intended to ruin the reputations of those scholars whose names he assumed.

“Many people, particularly with a career in academia ... value their reputations at least as much as their property,” Abdus-Salaam wrote.