Hobby Lobby's New Hobby: Smuggling Artifacts

The arts and crafts retail business behind Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the infamous Supreme Court case which allowed private companies to leave out contraception from their employees' insurance coverage on religious grounds, has become embroiled in another controversy: smuggling ancient artifacts from war-torn Iraq.

On Wednesday, July 5th, 2017, the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn, NY filed a complaint against the owners of Hobby Lobby, alleging that the Oklahoma-based art supplies business had illegally purchased 5,500 ancient cuneiform tablets and clay bullae from Iraq. The items were shipped to Hobby Lobby stores in Oklahoma and two corporate branches by way of the United Arab Emirates and Israel, where they were packaged in containers falsely describing the contents as tile samples.

According to the complaint, Hobby Lobby began a collection of artifacts from the Fertile Crescent--a particularly moist and arid area of the Middle East where many early civilizations thrived--since as early as in or around 2009, and continued to amass thousands-years-old artifacts that are biblically significant for years. Even after a legal expert on retainer advised the company to stop the shopping spree of ancient tablets and manuscripts in October 2010, mainly because they may have been stolen from historical sites, Hobby Lobby still didn't listen.

In responding to the PR disaster, Hobby Lobby’s president Steve Green said that the collection was to be displayed in various museums and public institutions. Though unconfirmed, it is believed that the artifacts were to be displayed in the Hobby Lobby-funded Bible museum, which is scheduled to open in Washington, DC in November 2017.

Online, people made made comments and jokes about the story, claiming that purchasing the artifacts from Iraq may be supporting ISIS, who has a black market to sell ancient Iraq artifacts.

To recap: The billionaire founder of Hobby Lobby may be funding ISIS by buying religious artifacts on the black market https://t.co/I54jpyl6hx

— Mathew Ingram (@mathewi) July 5, 2017

Hobby Lobby smuggling ancient Iraqi artifacts into the US: pic.twitter.com/7YhIXPQrmx

— Julia Reinstein (@juliareinstein) July 5, 2017

While we've been babbling on Twitter, the Hobby Lobby CEO is busy solving some Dan Brown novel stuff with ancient tablets.

— Max Burns (@themaxburns) July 5, 2017

Hobby Lobby looting Iraq was not a story I was expecting but then again this is 2017.

— Gabe Ortíz (@TUSK81) July 5, 2017

Prosecutors filed the complaint with a settlement stipulation, requiring Hobby Lobby to return the artifacts as well as pay an additional $3 million.

Unlike their previous battle in the Supreme Court, Hobby Lobby representatives swiftly agreed to the settlement with theU.S. Attorney's Office, forfeiting thousands of artifacts it had acquired from modern-day Iraq and accepting a $3 million fine issued by the Justice Department.