John Lennon fingerprint card seized by FBI

John Lennon’s application for United States residence was seized by the FBI this week from a New York memorabilia dealer.

Peter Siegel was intending to auction the 1976 immigration document for a minimum of $100,000. The prints were taken at a New York police station during Lennon’s application to for permanent residence.



James Margolin, FBI

Siegel claims the card’s owner, a music promoter, bought it at a convention two decades ago. He believes the FBI seized it due to the Lennon connection.

If it wasn’t John Lennon’s card, if it was anybody else’s, I would never have heard from the authorities. The fact is, anything that has to do with the government and John Lennon, they believe shouldn’t be in the public’s hands.
Peter Siegel


In 1991 Sotheby’s auction house sold a similar card for $4,125, without interruption from the FBI. Officials at Sotheby’s said it was an extra copy made and autographed by Lennon for a policeman, and was not an official document.

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