Hobby Lobby Bought More Smuggled Artifacts Earlier

Arts-and-crafts giant Hobby Lobby was pilloried last week after it agreed to forfeit $1.6 million worth of smuggled Iraqi antiquities it bought in 2010 to promote passion for the Bible. 

It turns out that wasn't the first time the company illegally imported artifacts. 

An attorney for the retailer confirmed to NBC News that the $3 million it will pay the federal government to settle a civil case isn't a fine but a payment to cover unspecified items that were improperly brought to the United States before the 2010 acquisition. 

Hobby Lobby doesn't have those purchases any longer. A stipulation outlining the settlement said they are "dissipated," suggesting they were either sold or donated. 

But the company declined to answer questions about the earlier items, including whether any of them were given to the soon-to-open Museum of the Bible in Washington, which Hobby Lobby helped fund. 

"This shows this is not a one-off. They made these kinds of mistakes repeatedly," said Candida Moss, a professor at Notre Dame and co-author of the forthcoming "Bible Nation: The United States of Hobby Lobby." 

"They should definitely be opening up their books." 

Hobby Lobby, which has more than 700 stores across the United States, is owned by billionaire evangelical Christians who began amassing an unparalleled private collection of Bible-related texts and artifacts in 2009. 

Last week, prosecutors in New York announced the chain had signed a civil settlement over hundreds of Mesopotamian-era tablets covered in ancient cuneiform writing and thousands of clay tokens known as bullae that it bought from overseas dealers in 2010.