Prosecutors Drop Charges That Man Sold Stolen Cels

Charges that a Studio City art dealer sold cartoon cels stolen from Warner Bros. were dropped by federal prosecutors this week after a witness came forward with new evidence about how the cels had been stored.

The witness’s testimony persuaded federal prosecutors not to proceed with the criminal case against Billy W. Carmen, 31, who had operated a business in the building where Warner Bros. had stored thousands of cels, Assistant U.S. Atty. Sally Meloch said in a court declaration.

Federal prosecutors had charged Carmen, who founded a Toluca Lake company called Anima’Zing Source, with selling cartoon cels from a cache worth more than $1 million that Warner Bros. had reported was stolen in 1988 from a storage space in Burbank. The cels reported stolen included images of such popular cartoon characters as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn and Yosemite Sam.

But Carmen, who is well-known among animation art collectors and dealers in Los Angeles, denied stealing the cels and said he found them in a trash dumpster outside the office.

“I am ecstatic,” Carmen said Tuesday. “A lot of people in this industry know that most animation art comes out of garbage dumpsters. It’s a known fact in the world of animation that this stuff is thrown away. It’s no secret.”

Cartoon cels are one-dimensional, brightly colored paintings on acetate that are used to create animated cartoons.

For much of the 80-year history of animation, the cels--so called because they were originally painted on celluloid--were considered valueless. But interest in the cels has surged recently, and they are becoming popular with collectors.

Meloch said in the court affidavit that the witness--who was not named--provided new information about how the movie production company stored and kept track of the cels at the time of the alleged theft.

She declined Tuesday to provide further details of the testimony that persuaded prosecutors to drop the case against Carmen.

If he had been convicted of the charges--three counts of interstate transportation of stolen property--he could have faced 30 years in prison and $750,000 in fines.