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I think this guy is the tip of the iceberg for trusted local officials who have made personal fortunes from selling official records on ebay. As a genealogist, I frequently report such items, but ebay has never done one thing to check whether the sellers are in legal possession of them. It is sickening to think of the loss of rare records just for profit, when so many people could have used these records to find their ancestors, local history, etc. When these items come into the buyers' hands, they generally go through many successive rounds of sales.

I have personally subsidized several state and local genealogical societies in the emergency purchases of rare records found on ebay. Although this played into the seller's hands, it got them into proper hands again.

Ebay has constantly stated how hard they work to protect buyers from fraud and get rid of sellers who are thieves. This is a complete crock! The only fraud controllers on ebay are usually other sellers, and sometimes alert and savvy and conscientious buyers. Only when private money is used to tediously fund the investigation and prosecution of thieves and scammers has ebay then jumped onto the band wagon and played the tune, "Oh, What a Good Boy Am I." I wish ebay would stop getting the credit for efforts they not only have not made, but have often actively subverted. At ebay, the name of the game is greed.