Scammer Mutilated Precious Shakespeare Folio

One of the most valuable English-language books in existence is in tatters because of an unemployed book dealer's obsession with a Cuban waitress, prosecutors told a British court yesterday. Raymond Scott stole a 400-year-old first edition of Shakespeare's works from a university exhibition and then ripped out pages and destroyed its binding to disguise it, said prosecutors.

Scott posed as an international playboy in an effort to sell it to the Shakespeare Library in Washington DC, and was arrested after staff became suspicious, the Telegraph reports. Experts were able to recognize the unique copy of the First Folio despite its "damaged, brutalized and mutilated" condition, the court heard. The prosecution said Scott had turned to crime after becoming infatuated with a waitress on a trip to Cuba and bankrupting himself by sending her large amounts of money. (More Raymond Scott stories.)