18 U.S.C. § 668
Section 668 · Theft of major artwork
This is § 320902 of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 8 court decisions — leading case 135 S. Ct. 1074 - Yates v. United States (2015)
Most recently applied in United States v. Jarred Alexander Goldman (March 2020)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) Definitions.—In this section—
(1) “museum” means an organized and permanent institution, the activities of which affect interstate or foreign commerce, that—
(A) is situated in the United States;
(B) is established for an essentially educational or aesthetic purpose;
(C) has a professional staff; and
(D) owns, utilizes, and cares for tangible objects that are exhibited to the public on a regular schedule.
(2) “object of cultural heritage” means an object that is—
(A) over 100 years old and worth in excess of $5,000; or
(B) worth at least $100,000.
(b) Offenses.—A person who—
(1) steals or obtains by fraud from the care, custody, or control of a museum any object of cultural heritage; or
(2) knowing that an object of cultural heritage has been stolen or obtained by fraud, if in fact the object was stolen or obtained from the care, custody, or control of a museum (whether or not that fact is known to the person), receives, conceals, exhibits, or disposes of the object,
shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
1996—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 104–294 designated first and second pars. beginning with quotation mark as pars. (1) and (2), respectively, and made technical amendment to provisions appearing in original.
Effective Date of 1996 Amendment
Amendment by Pub. L. 104–294 effective Sept. 13, 1994, see section 604(d) of Pub. L. 104–294, set out as a note under section 13 of this title.