By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
Imagine the FBI bothering to do such a thing in a world filled with the likes of the Underwear Bomber and Times Square Bomber and Bernie Madoff.
But as the late John Lennon sang: “It’s easy if you try.”
The New York Times reports that the FBI made a big fuss and served a subpoena Wednesday to the Gotta Have It! shop on East 57th Street in Manhattan and seized a set of Lennon’s 1976 fingerprints he provided for his citizenship.
The shop was about to put the collectors item up for bid for a minimum of $100,000.
The Times reported that the fuss may have come down to an issue of ownership of government property.
NY FBI spokesman James Margolin told the Times there was an “investigation into how that item came to be up for auction.”
Peter Siegel, owner of the shop, told the Times that since last Thursday the F.B.I., the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan had asked about the card.
“I’ve been doing this 20 years and have never had this much government interest in something,” Siegel told the Times. “Here he is, one of our greatest musicians ever, and they just don’t stop investigating this guy.”
