Man pleads guilty to possessing stolen bookmark purportedly owned by Hitler

A Kenmore man pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court to possessing a stolen gold bookmark that purportedly once belonged to Adolf Hitler.

Christian Popescu, 37, pleaded guilty to a single count of sale or receipt of stolen goods. He faces up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced June 12, but the government in a plea agreement said it will ask that he serve just six months in prison.

Popescu was arrested in November by armed agents on the sidewalk outside a Bellevue Starbucks, in a sting operation involving an undercover agent from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement posing as a buyer.

The bookmark had not been seen since it was stolen from an auction house in Madrid in 2002, according to prosecutors.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Woods said Popescu knew the bookmark had been stolen, and had information that the thieves had once considered melting it down for the gold.

The bookmark's genesis has been questioned, but it is believed to have been a gift to Hitler from his mistress, Eva Braun, in 1943 to console him after the defeat of the Nazi army at Stalingrad that year. The 6-inch bookmark, topped with an eagle and swastika and bearing Hitler's portrait, is engraved with the words, "My Adolf, don't worry ... (the defeat) ... was only an inconvenience that will not break your certainty of victory."

Hitler and Braun died in Berlin in the closing days of the war. The bookmark is believed to have passed to the family of Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Hitler's armed-forces chief who was tried for war crimes at Nuremberg and hanged.

Agents said Popescu was asking $150,000 for the bookmark.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said that they learned of the bookmark from a confidential source, who claimed he had been contacted by Popescu about the bookmark. Agents opened an investigation in August and sent undercover agents to observe a meeting in November between the source and Popescu at the Bellevue coffee shop.

Woods said the recommended six-months sentence was, in part, driven by the estimated worth of the bookmark: between $5,000 and $10,000. The auction house was paid just under $10,000 by an insurance company after the theft.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Rich Cohen, who handles forfeitures in the prosecutor's office, said that the insurance company likely has a claim on the bookmark. "We suspect it will be heading back to Europe," he said.

Mike Carter: 206-464-3706