Did or didn’t Putin steal Robert Kraft’s 2005 Super Bowl ring?
I was watching Saturday’s ABC World News when anchor David Muir announced that Vladimir Putin stole a Super Bowl ring and the story would be covered later in the broadcast. But the newscast ended without that story. Because that piqued my interest, I googled up the story and found page after page of reports that Putin had stolen a Super Bowl ring belonging to Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots.
Apparently those reports were based on a June 14 New York Post article in which Kraft said he had no intention of letting Putin keep the ring after showing it to him in 2005 and when he demanded it back, the White House pressured him to drop it. I also found a 2005 Associated Press report in which Kraft denied that Vladimir is a thief.
Both reports follow:
SUPER BOWL RING HAS 124 DIAMONDS
Associated Press
June 30, 2005
BOSTON -- Russian President Vladimir Putin walked off with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft's diamond-encrusted 2005 Super Bowl ring during a recent meeting with U.S. business executives.
But not to worry: Kraft says the ring was a gift to Putin, presented out of "respect and admiration."
Earlier, The Boston Globe had speculated that Kraft hadn't meant to give away the ring.
"I showed the president my most recent Super Bowl ring," Kraft said in a statement released Wednesday. The Russian president "was clearly taken with its uniqueness," Kraft said.
"At that point, I decided to give him the ring as a symbol of the respect and admiration that I have for the Russian people and the leadership of President Putin," Kraft said.
Putin met with the businessmen Saturday at Konstantinovsky Palace near St. Petersburg, Russia. Near the end of the meeting, Kraft took off the ring, and handed it to Putin. Putin tried it on, put it in his pocket and left, according to Russian news reports.
According to Patriots spokesman Stacey James, the ring – which is encrusted with 124 diamonds – has a value of "substantially more" than the previously reported $15,000.
A senior Kremlin official, Dmitry Peskov, told The Associated Press that Putin had given the ring to the Kremlin library where other foreign gifts are kept.
Kraft's business interests include paper and packaging companies and venture capital investments. He handed out Super Bowl rings to players and coaches at his home two weeks ago.
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KRAFT: PUTIN STOLE BOWL RING
New York Post
June 14, 2013
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft revealed the real story behind a 2005 meeting with Vladimir Putin, during which the Russian president pocketed his Super Bowl ring, worth more than $25,000. Kraft, at the time, claimed the diamond-encrusted bauble was a gift, but he now admits Putin stole it, and the White House intervened when he demanded it back.
Kraft explained the incident happened while Sandy Weill and other business execs were in St. Petersburg. “I took out the ring and showed it to [Putin], and he put it on and he goes, ‘I can kill someone with this ring,’ ” Kraft told the crowd at Carnegie Hall’s Medal of Excellence gala at the Waldorf-Astoria.“I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out.”
Kraft released a statement at the time, “President Putin, a great and knowledgable sports fan, was clearly taken with its uniqueness. I decided to give him the ring as a symbol of the respect and admiration that I have for the Russian people and [his] leadership.
But Kraft really wanted the 4.94-carat bauble back, he said Thursday, admitting he’d gotten a call from the George W. Bush-run White House, saying, “‘It would really be in the best interest of US-Soviet relations if you meant to give the ring as a present.” (In fact the Soviet Union had collapsed 14 years earlier.)
But, Kraft said, “I really didn’t [want to]. I had an emotional tie to the ring, it has my name on it. I don’t want to see it on eBay. There was a pause on the other end of the line, and the voice repeated, ‘It would really be in the best interest if you meant to give the ring as a present.’ ” The ring is now reportedly kept in the Kremlin library.
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