The Morning Call from Allentown, Pennsylvania • 22

B4 THE MORNING CALL, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18, 1995 FIRST Time lapse is top factor in stolen breastplate case V1 Lafayette library staffers testify 2 hours By GAY ELWELL Of The Morning Call claims the institution was'aware as early as 1987 that the pectoral had been taken from its collection. Generally, lawsuits must be brought within two years of the occurrence or discovery. The college, which acquired the breastplate and other pharaonic artifacts in 1873 from the widow of the civil engineer who brought them back from Egypt, says any supposed "curse" on the items is the creation of a wire service reporter trying to spice up a story. The college also says it didn't know the amulet was its rightful property until 1990, because Gennett, who was in charge of the library's special collections, deliberately eradicated records of its existence. The amulet, in the form of a vulture and cobra, is now owned by Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, which acquired the piece in 1981 for $165,000.

That transaction took place after the artifact failed to meet its minimum price at a 1980 New York auction, where it had been consigned by a Bucks County antiques dealer representing Gennett. The dealer was once a defendant to the suit, but the college dropped its claims against the man, who said Gennett told him the pectoral was his personal property. The college also settled its suit against the MFA in 1992, giving the museum clear title for an undisclosed sum of money and a three-week display of the piece at the college. Gennett, tall and gaunt, with a gray beard and thinning gray hair, attended yesterday's nonjury trial Although he occasionally conferred with his attorney, James McNamara, he offered no direct testimony and, with chin dropped to his chest, seldom met anyone's eye. His background reportedly led to his firing by a New Jersey law library, and he is currently making deliveries for a Bucks County food company.

When the theft first came to light, speculation arose that it might have been a factor in the 1984 murder of another Lafayette College library staffer, catalog Alice Hall, in her Palmer Township home. While her name, and that of her lover and boss, former librarian Clyde Haselden, was mentioned in testimony yesterday, her still-unsolved murder was not. Library staffers Diane Windham Stripped of the speculation that its theft was a motive for murder and divorced from Saturday whispers of a mummy's curse, the case of Lafayette College v. Robert G. Gennett seems simple, even anticlimactic.

The essential question now to be answered by Northampton County Judge F.P. Kimberly McFadden, who heard less than two hours of testimony yesterday, is: Did the college take prompt-enough legal action against Gennett when it learned that it was missing an ancient Egyptian artifact and he was responsible for its theft? McFadden will base her ruling on yesterday's testimony from four library staffers, as well as other documents, including earlier depositions in the case. One of those depositions is from Gennett, who has admitted stealing the carnelian- and glass-studded silver and gold breastplate he was an assistant librarian in the college's Skillman Library in the late 1970S. Gennett, fired in 1983 for stealing money from copy machines in the library, says Lafayette waited too long to file its 1991 suit and carnelian- and glass-studded silver and gold breastplate she was researching the papyrus and believed the Metropolitan expert had mentioned the breastplate simply to place the papyrus in a historical context. She told college attorney Daniel Cohen it was not until 1989 that it became apparent that the pectoral was the college's, and not until Shaw became aware in 1990 that Gennett had had access to the collection that all the pieces came together.

Shaw, Helen V. Dungan and Dorothy Cieslicki, and Michiko Okaya, now gallery director at the college's Williams Center for the Arts, were yesterday's witnesses. Dungan, a cataloging librarian, said it was possible that the pectoral was never included in the library's catalog, as was the case with "a fair amount of things." Cieslicki, hired as head librarian in 1980, said she never saw or knew of the pectoral until the late 1980s, when Shaw brought to her attention a letter from a Metropolitan Museum researcher that mentioned the pectoral in context with a papyrus in the college's collection. She then brought the matter to the attention of the college provost and instructed Shaw to investigate. Okaya said that although the 1987 letter mentioned the pectoral, heart problems reported EL- mm wire defect LVlHi found -1 1 By ANN WLAZELEK Of The Morning Call Dusting off the job A construction worker at the site of the planned new federal courthouse at 5th and Hamilton streets in Allentown uses a mask to filter the cement dust that escapes as he mixes concrete.

He really needed the mask, but considering yesterday's temperature, he probably could have lost the sweatshirt wf3 had attempted to correct, so they tried to notify and examine all 224 patients who underwent the procedure at LVH since 1992. Of the total 90 had died from the severity of their heart disease or other conditions. Physicians performed fluoroscopies, or special X-rays, on 129 of the remaining 134 patients and found nine who had pieces of wire in the lower chambers of their hearts. Doctors monitored the heartbeats of five of the nine patients with wires and found no irregular rhythms, Fitzgibbons said. Of the remaining five patients, three could not be found, one was in Florida awaiting tests and another was considered too sick for tests.

Fitzgibbons said he was not sorry the defect led to a nationwide recall after studies snowed the faulty product appeared to cause no harm to patients. "We didn't know that going into it," he said. "I'm glad we studied it and even happier we didn't find anything." Lehigh Valley Hospital's discovery of a faulty pacemaker wire last month led to a national recall, special X-rays of 129 patients and even more tests on five people with pieces of wire left in their hearts. But no one, so far, suffered irregular heartbeats from the one-inch piece of metal that broke off of the temporary pacing wires, authorities said yesterday. Dr.

John Fitzgibbons, LVH's chief of medicine, said. "As far as we can tell, the wire didn't do any harm to people." Abbott Laboratories recalled thousands of the "temporary transluminal RV pacing leads" on Oct. 19, after LVH physicians reported the problem. lx)cal physicians found that the tip of the wire sometimes broke off before or during the removal of the temporary device. At the time, doctors did not know if the pieces would create a rhythm problem that the pacer wire it HI JOHN F.

SIMITZ The Morning Call when you use a Classified Ad in The Morning Call. wi i a iikc to aavemse mv mercnanaise vaiuea at mr v- i iiKe to aavemse my mercnanaise vaiuea at $1,500 or less with a NO BUGS ad In The Morning Call Classified section. (For private party items only not available for businesses, yard sales or garage sales.) THE MORNING CALL MAIL TO: The Morning Call Classified Dept. P.O. Box 1260 Allentown, PA 18105-1260 Classification: Please run my NO BUGS ad for: (Up to $1,500 value) Four lines, eight days for 1 9 Four lines, four days for $14 Please run my Bargain Box ad: ($500 or less value) Three lines, 3 days for $8 Sat, Sun.) Enclosed Is my check for NO BUGS Classified Ads take the bugs out of selling your merchandise valued at $1,500 or less.

Private parties may advertise their items for as little as $19 on 4 lines for days or $14 on 4 lines for 4 days. Or, if you have merchandise valued at $500 or less, you can place your ad in the Bargain Box category for for 3 days Sat, All you need to do is call (610) 820-6565 and have your MasterCard, Visa, American Express or Discover Card handy. Then, just place your ad with our sales representative. It's that easy. And you'll be amazed at the results as more than 300,000 daily and nearly 400,000 Sunday Morning Call readers will be looking for your merchandise.

To place your NO BUGS Classified Ad in The Morning Call, phone (610) 820-6565 today. want my NO BUGS ad to say: (One Une consists of approximately 25 letters. Capital letters equal two spaces.) You must advertise the price of the Item for sale. Or charge the ad to my MasterCard, VISA. American Express or Discover Card Card number Expiration date Signature Name Address (line 1) (line 2) (line 3) (line 4) Extra lines cost an additional $1 per line.

(line 5) (line 6) State City ZIP Day Phone Home Phone.