Raymond Scott, 53, who posed as an international playboy
despite having huge debts, walked into one of the world's leading Shakespeare
research centers, the Folger Shakespeare library in Washington D.C., with the
17th century book.
Staff at the library suspected the valuable book was stolen
and called police.
The first folio edition, first printed in 1623 seven years
after Shakespeare's death, is regarded as one of the most important printed
works in the English language and fewer than 250 copies of the collection
survive.
Scott was cleared last month of stealing the book from
Durham University in 1998 but was convicted by a jury at Newcastle Crown Court
of handling stolen goods and removing stolen property from Britain.
"You are to some extent a fantasist and have to some
degree a personality disorder and you have been an alcoholic," said Judge
Richard Lowden as he jailed him.
"It is clear that from the (psychiatric) report you are
not suffering from any mental disorder."
During his trial, experts said the book had been damaged,
with pages ripped out, reducing its value to about 1 million pounds, the Press
Association reported.
"It would be regarded by many as priceless but to you
it was definitely at a very big price and you went to very great lengths for
that price," Lowden told Scott.
"You wanted to fund an extremely ludicrous playboy
lifestyle in order to impress a woman you met in Cuba.
The court heard that Scott, who owed 90,000 pounds on credit
cards, had 25 previous convictions dating back to 1977, mainly for dishonesty.
He had claimed that there was a conspiracy among Shakespeare
experts to convict him.
