Copycat bracelet lands trader in court

By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — A former dealer of Indian arts and crafts was found guilty of fraud by a Gallup jury Thursday.

Amrio Al-Assi, who with his brother, Woody, owned Silver Bear Trading Co., was found guilty of fraud of more than $250. The jury deliberated for just less than 15 minutes.
He was accused of selling a knockoff as an original Jesse Monongye bracelet to a Massachusetts woman in August 2004.

While the sentencing date for Al-Assi has not been set, McKinley County District Attorney Karl Gillson informed District Court Judge Robert Aragon after the verdict had been given that an agreement had been signed between his office and the defense that would not require Al-Assi to get jail time if he was convicted.

Gillson said the agreement was signed so the defense would agree to waive a preliminary hearing. Since many of the witnesses were scattered across the country, waiving the preliminary hearing would save his office thousands of dollars.

Gillson said Al-Assi would be on probation and would have to pay restitution to the victim. He will also have a felony conviction on his record.

He said that while the trial was expensive — witnesses came from Massachusetts, Utah and Arizona — he felt it was important to the community because of the role that native arts and crafts plays to the area’s economy.

Richard Wade, Al-Assi’s defense attorney, said the trial was important because his client maintained his innocence, and Wade said he believed him, so he would not agree to him pleading guilty to a felony offense. He said he would have supported pleading to a misdemeanor because of the cost of going to trial, but that option was not put on the table.

The fact that the jury came back in less than 15 minutes — which Gilson said was the shortest deliberation in his career — indicates that it was a simple case — would the jury believe Barbara Sheroke’s version of what happened that day in August 2004 or would they believe Al-Assi’s.

Sheroke claimed that when she showed an interest in the bracelet, Al-Assi told her that it was made by Monongye, a well-known Navajo silversmith. She testified that Al-Assi showed her a book on Monongye and pointed to a bracelet on page 19 and said this was the bracelet, adding that he was a friend of Monongye and the silversmith did custom work for the store at times.

A couple of days later, when she visited a store in Scottsdale, she learned that it had not been made by Monongye and was just an imitation. She was able to get in contact with Monongye later that night and showed him the bracelet, and he also told her that he had never made it.

Monongye, who was on the board for the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, a federal agency that overseas the arts and crafts industry, went to Washington shortly thereafter and used the bracelet in a presentation on fake Indian art. IACB officials then contacted the FBI, who began an investigation which was later dropped. But it was picked up by the McKinley County District Attorney’s office.

Al-Assi’s version was quite different.

He said that when Sheroke expressed an interest in jewelry with bear motifs and started looking at the bracelet, he showed her a book on Monongye because he made jewelry with bear motifs.

During his closing arguments, Wade pointed out that there was a hallmark on the back of the bracelet which had the name Richard Tolina, who was the Navajo who actually made the bracelet. If Al-Assi was trying to defraud Sheroke, he said, why would he claim the bracelet was done by Monongye when all she had to do was look on the back of the bracelet and see the name of the silversmith who actually made it?

Sheroke said she wasn’t aware that silversmiths signed their work so did not look on the bracelet’s back until she began questioning the item’s authenticity.

So the case came down to credibility — whose version would the jury believe?

Al-Assi was also hurt by Trent Pedersen, who was stationed in Gallup in 2005 and who investigated the complaint.

His report on an interview he and another FBI conducted with Al-Assi said that when he was questioned about his sales technique, Al-Assi said, “in sales, you have to bulls--t.” Al-Assi testified he never said that. Instead, he said “this is bulls--t” to the FBI interviewer in response to accusations being made by them.

In the end, the jury’s verdict indicated they believed Sheroke’s version over Al-Assi.