Antiquities dealer has colorful, checkered career

Leonardo Patterson made his first archaeological find at age 7 in a yam field in his native Costa Rica — a piece of clay pottery his cousin said could be thousands of years old. It launched a lifelong fascination with pre-Columbian art, and a career checkered by charges of smuggling and selling forgeries. Patterson has become known to many in the close-knit world of collectors and curators as a wily salesman with a nervous stutter and humble demeanor. "The guy is legendary in the field," said Michael Coe, a retired Yale anthropology professor who told... [read full story]