When Roxanna Brown flew to the United States to address a conference at the University of Washington last May, the Bangkok University museum director had little idea that she would be arrested shortly after she landed. Four days later, the 62-year-old amputee, who was charged with a single count of wire fraud, would be found dead in her cell after she bled to death from a perforated ulcer.

Outraged at their colleague’s treatment, Ms. Brown’s supporters have managed to keep the story in the public eye through online petitions, YouTube videos, and a Congressional inquiry. Now a series of articles in the Los Angeles Times (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) raises troubling questions about the level of her involvement in antiquities fraud.

By all accounts, Ms. Brown, a leading authority on Southeast Asian ceramics, had worked to prevent the looting of treasures. She had even been an informant for U.S. authorities who were trying to crack an antiquities-smuggling ring. Agents began to suspect Ms. Brown’s involvement when a faxed copy of her signature appeared on a single appraisal form. Investigators believed that some of the smuggled objects were being appraised at inflated values, allowing collectors to claim fraudulent tax write-offs when the items were donated to museums.

According to the Times’s articles, since her death, investigators have produced documents that contained lists of antiquities that they say Ms. Brown was trying to sell. The newspaper also reprinted an e-mail exchange allegedly between Ms. Brown and a Southern California art dealer, who asks her to download and sign as many as eight blank appraisal forms. Ms. Brown replies that she is delighted to be a “partner in this.” Her brother, Fred Brown, insists that his sister’s electronic signature was used without her permission and she feared the investigation would ruin her name, which he says was all she had. The criminal charge against her was dropped after her death. —Martha Ann Overland