Wow! Really!? Finders Keepers For Stolen Diamond Buyer!

It’s finders keepers, losers weepers, a federal judge says.

A Manhattan federal judge suggests a New Jersey girl can keep her stolen 7.44-carat diamond because she was unaware the stone was hot. The rock was allegedly swiped in 2003 by disgraced star stylist Derek Khan — that has worked with hip hop personalities like Lil’ Kim, Mary j. Blige and P. Diddy. He borrowed it for a celebrity fashion shoot that year then openly sold it without approval.

A 2003 police report accusing him of grand larceny appreciated the rock at $120,000 — and Khan wound up planning to arrest for just two decades after being convicted of pocketing some $500,000 in stolen loot through various gem scams.

The enormous stone eventually wound up in the ownership of Suzanne Zaretsky of Saddle River, NJ, when her late father got it for her in December 2003.

The dad got it from a Midtown jeweler, unaware that the Bill Goldberg Diamond Corp. had reported that Khan scammed a few of its diamonds eight months earlier which the pear shaped, six-figure rock was among the stolen treasures.

In 2012, Zaretsky and her husband, Steven, got the stone to be estimated in the Diamond District.
It eventually wound up being delivered to the Gemological Institute of America for evaluation, where specialists identified it was one of the stolen Khan diamonds and seized it, leading the Zaretskys to sue to get it back.

Manhattan federal Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled Monday that the diamond should be delivered to the pair as they are protected under federal legislation by the alleged “merchant entrustment rule.”
“It is undisputed that plaintiffs came into the property of the diamond innocently,” she wrote. “And it is also clear that. . . the business entrustment rule applies.”

She added that the gem’s previous owner, Goldberg Diamond, “will be left to keep an unfortunate liability.”

“Such is the nature of a case such as this,” she added. “Where the true criminal — Khan — is beyond the court’s comprehension. There might be no doubt that Khan’s measures were larcenous. However, because he falls within the broad definition of ‘merchant’. . . his larceny didn't preclude him from passing title. I end, therefore, that plaintiffs are the rightful owners of the diamond.”

What do you guys think!??!