U.S. Government Settles Case Stemming From Death of Antiquities Scholar

A year after a prominent antiquities scholar died in a U.S. detention center, the federal government has agreed to pay $880,000 to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit, The Seattle Times reported.

Roxanna Brown, director of Bangkok University’s Southeast Asian Ceramics Museum, was in Seattle to deliver a lecture at the University of Washington when she was arrested, on May 9, 2008, on a single charge of wire fraud. Ms. Brown, who was then 62 and an amputee, was placed in a detention center at the Seattle-Tacoma airport. Despite complaining of being ill for several days, she was not attended by a doctor. She died in the middle of the night of a perforated ulcer.

Federal officials have conceded that there was no medical staff on duty the night Ms. Brown died, but under the terms of the settlement, the government admits no wrongdoing. The payout, which goes to Ms. Brown’s son, ends all pending lawsuits against the government.

Ms. Brown was charged with fraud after authorities said they had found her electronic signature on appraisal forms that inflated the value of artwork being donated to museums for tax deductions. Her arrest was part of a crackdown on art dealers suspected of smuggling stolen Thai antiquities into the United States.

Many academics and people who knew Ms. Brown were outraged at her treatment and have kept up a steady campaign to clear her name. Yet investigations by the Los Angeles Times produced evidence that Ms. Brown may have been involved in the smuggling of antiquities. —Martha Ann Overland