Geoff Kelly FBI Agent, Good Guy, But Follows The FBI/Gardner Museum Bogus Script
Gardner Heist Update: Museum Got Threats After Theft, FBI Needs Public's Help
Empty frames hang in the Isabella Stewart Gardner MuseumTwenty-three years since 13 priceless pieces of art were stolen from
the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Gardner and the FBI issued a
public appeal similar to the one launched just prior to James "Whitey"
Bulger's capture — complete with wanted posters.
The
posters don't sport the usual most-wanted suspects. instead, they
display the missing artwork in an effort to get someone to come forward
with what they know about the most significant art heist in history.
Gardner Museum director Anne Hawley is opening up about the loss.
"It was such a painful and horrible moment in the museum's life," Hawley said.
Until now, Hawley has said little about the theft and what happened in the immediate aftermath.
"We
also are being threatened from the outside by criminals who want
attention from the FBI, and so they were threatening us, and threatening
putting bombs in the museum," she said. "We were evacuating museum, the
staff members were under threat, no one really knew what kind of a
conundrum we were in."
Meanwhile, the FBI followed thousands of
leads worldwide, including in Ireland and Japan, and they believe they
know who might have taken the art.
WGBH News' Emily Rooney
interviewed Jeff Kelley, a special agent in the FBI's Boston field
office, and a member of the art crime unit.
Emily Rooney: You have been in this for at least ten years.
Geoff Kelley: It is actually 11 years now I have been the investigator on this case.
Rooney: You essentially know who did it.
Kelley: Yes.
Rooney: Why can't you say?
Kelley:
We have to temper what we put out there in the public, and we certainly
want to get the assistance of the public and we feel it is important to
kind of lay our cards out on the table and say we know who did it, and
we know who is involved, but we need your help.
We still have an
investigation here, and we still have to preserve the integrity of the
investigation, and because of that we can't tell you everything, and I
know it is kind of a little tantalizing to kind of put that out there
and not be able to follow it up and say this is who we think did it.
Rooney: Have you talked to the person?
Kelley:
We have certainly talked a to a lot of people, we have spoken to people
we think were involved and spoken to other people it has gotten us to
where we are now, and basically we need the help of the public.
We have used it before, and it is great, and we continue to try and solicit the help from the public.
Rooney: Anne
Hawley told us — we never heard that before — that right after the
heist there were all kinds of bomb threats and the museum was
threatened. Explain that. What happened?
Kelley: Certainly when you have a case of this magnitude, people are going to come out of the woodwork. That is what happened.
Shortly
after the case — it happened over the years — where people came forward
either claiming to have information about the theft, or coming forward
to try and extort some money out of the museum, so this has been such an
unusual investigation.
I have been working it for 11 years, but obviously it has been almost 24 years since it happened.
And
it has run the gamut from everything from an art investigation to drug
investigation to extortion investigation. I mean, it has really
encompassed every type of federal statute that you could think of.
Rooney:
The former Boston Herald reporter Tom Mashburger has a great tale of
being, essentially, blindfolded and taken to a place where somebody
unrolled something and he got some chips
Is there any possibility what he saw is one of the real pieces?
Kelley:
I know Tom and he has the utmost integrity. But from what I have
learned about the art itself, I don't think that what he saw was the
actual painting.
He described it as being unrolled, kind of
unfurled, but from speaking to the experts at the museum and at other
museums, the paintings are so thick that they would really be almost
impossible to roll up.
Rooney: Do you think
that they are still in existence and do you think together — because
with 13 objects, some of them are odd objects, they weren't all
paintings — to think that they're together?
Kelley: I don't know if they are still together. I think they are all in existence.
You
have to be cynical in this position and certainly one of the things we
have to look at was: Did these paintings get destroyed right after? When
these guys woke up and realized they committed the heist of the
century, did they panic and destroy them? And that's why we haven't seen
them — it is a possibility, but we have had confirmed sightings of some
of these pieces throughout the 90s and into the early 2000s and that
really gives us a comfort level that these paintings had not been
destroyed.
From the Gardner Art Heist Archives:
GARDNER
THEFT: 15 YEARS LATER, 2005 Article
Sunday,
March 18, 1990 is a
famous date. On that day, the biggest art heist in U.S. history occurred at the
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, with over $300 million in paintings lost.
Works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Manet and Degas, along with several other valuable
and irrepacable works, were stolen. To this day it is regarded as a fascinating
and tragic moment in Boston history.
At the heart of the recent controversy around the stolen art is William
Youngworth, who has been portrayed in the press as a central figure in the
theft. Boston Herald reporter Tom Mashberg has claimed that Youngworth
sent him to a warehouse where he witnessed one of the missing works: the famed
Rembrandt painting "Christ In A Storm On The Sea Of Galilee".
Recently, Mr. Youngworth wrote to Big RED & Shiny, stating that he
has been mis-represented. After much consideration, Big RED has offered Mr.
Youngworth an opportunity to state his case, and present his side of the story
and the subsequent interpretations of the Boston press. Below is his view, in
his own words, offered to enlighten any discussion around the stolen artworks
of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
The most recently 're-newed' efforts by the Gardner
Museum to recover their former property is this week's request was
for the person who reached out to them in 1994 contact them again. Like 1994
was the only time??? Please! [1]
Is it because that person offered just enough of their neck to get it whacked
off by demonstrating control? Allow me to be so bold as to make another
prediction, like I did after they lowered the boom on me in 1997. That was
their last chance. They carved the olive branch to a fine point and stuck
it in my eye. The author they seek has passed away.
Mr. Kurkjian's feature was very interesting. While I don't care for Mr. Kurkjian
after his bullying tactics of March 2004, you cannot take away from
the fact that he is smart with a lot of feds whispering things in his ears that
other reporters would die for. But he works for The Boston Globe which has
some editorial integrity, most the time.
Then, of course, not to be out-done by the Globe (the very Globe that fired him
for same reasons the Herald hired him), we hear from Tom Mashberg. The very
same reporter that gave us the sensational summer of 1997 with banner headlines
of "We've seen it". That was the tale where I supposedly took him to
a warehouse and showed him the Storm On The Sea Of Galilee. Hey Tom,
where did all that happen again?
Mr. Mashberg gives the public some tripe about another cell-mate tale. I guess
he hasn't learned his lesson about cell-mate's with tales to tell. Poor Tom.
Ever since he got tossed out of the Gardner car he's been pouring the nasties
on me. Tom, we can't hear your tinhorn out here.
I haven't settled on the title of my book yet. Either Dirty Pictures or Tom's
Tinhorn.
You would think those con artists would have packed it in by now. Just last
week I received an approach from a party in Las Vegas offering to place Five
Million in a Hong Kong Bank for me. So I sniff at the bait. In the story this
person fobs herself off as a Las Vegas art dealer with a line like she is Julia Roberts in Ocean's 11. When I tell her how the process
starts to even see if the new owners want to sell their new acquisitions back,
the scam wore its tread off real quick.
The "art dealer" turns out to be a Las Vegas Dominatrix who's claim
to fame was some lie she skillfully crafted about having Bill Bennet as one of
her 'clients'. I've had some funny scams run on me but this was the best yet.
Check out this "art dealer" at their website. Too funny. When I give him/her the
"run along" I get a nasty diatribe and how she was going to my old
sell-out lawyer and go around me with a crew doing 30 years in a Federal
Prison. The same crew who the FBI said was plotting to kidnap my little boy to
get at the Gardner stash. Sounds like they have it, huh? But because it is me
and a flea has more rights in the Commonwealth then my family has, conspiracy
to kidnap a little boy for a 300 million dollar ransom is fluffed off.
Trust me. No one on the face of God's earth wishes the 1994 author could write
back more than me and a little boy.
Well who knows. Maybe the Gardner will get lucky and someone is hard-up enough
to chase that fake reward. When one of their Trustees turned over my sincere
personal letter to a Tabloid for publication last year my debt to him was
settled. All he had to do was send a post card to a P.O. Box saying
"yes" and he would have been talking to the people he needs to talk
to now.
As for me. I found a woman who loves me. My little boy is growing into a fine
man. Our life is nice and private. We have a beautiful home full of love and
the Gardner can do their Blanche DuBouir act again next year.
Sorry everyone. I did my best but the frauds of the Fenway make too much off
this thing to wrap it up. Hell, half of those things were misattributed to
start with. I am left with one question from Mr. Kurkjian's feature: How did
the robber know the security console so well? He knows, but not telling
goes with the deal he made for what he got.
[1] "Gardner Museum Seeks Tips On Thefts", The
Boston Globe, March 14, 2005
- See
more at: http://www.bigredandshiny.com/cgi-bin/BRS.cgi?section=article&issue=20&article=YOUNGWORTH_GARDNER_THEFT_15_216622#sthash.JV6Dyz85.dpuf
A Hartford Wise Guy And A $500 Million Museum Heist
It was a shore dinner in Maine a decade ago that transformed Robert
Gentile, an aging, unremarkable wise guy from Hartford, into the best
lead in years in one of the world's most baffling crime mysteries, the
unsolved robbery of half a billion dollars in art from Boston's Isabella
Stewart Gardner Museum.
Gentile
disagrees with most of what the government says about him. But he does
not dispute that he and his wife drove to Portland, Maine, from their
home in Manchester. It was nothing then for the couple to jump into a
car and cross New England for a meal. Gentile is said to be passionate
about food. His nickname is "The Cook."
Neither is there
disagreement that Gentile was meeting Robert Guarente and his wife.
Guarente, a bank robber, moved from Boston to Maine in 2002, after his
last prison sentence. He was living in the woods, two hours north of
Portland. Guarente had been associated for years with three Boston
criminals who the FBI believed were involved in or had information about
the Gardner heist. One of the three was Guarente's nephew; another was
Guarente's driver.
Gentile and Guarente had been friends and
partners since the 1980s when they met at a used car auction. Federal
prosecutors have said in court: They were inducted into the mafia
together. They are believed to have "committed robberies and possibly
other violent crimes together." And they roomed together for a while
outside Boston while acting as "armed bodyguards" for the mafia capo who
was their boss.
No one disputes that Gentile picked up the check
in Portland. Or that he continues to complain that Guarente's wife,
Elene, ordered an expensive lobster dinner.
What is disputed,
hotly, is what happened outside in the parking lot. Elene Guarente has
told the Gardner investigators that she believes her husband put one or
more of the stolen paintings in their car before they left their home in
the woods and that the art was handed off to Gentile in Portland.
Gentile
claims that Elene Guarente's account, which she first gave
investigators in 2009 or '10, is, as he once muttered in court, "lies,
lies, all lies." Through his lawyers, he denies receiving a painting or
paintings, denies having knowledge about the robbery and denies knowing
what happened to the art afterward. Gentile said he met with Guarente in
Portland because his friend, who died in January 2004, was sick, broke
and in need of a loan.
Gentile's most emphatic denial may have
come earlier this month when a federal judge sentenced him to 21/2 years
in prison on what the government called unrelated drug and gun charges.
At age 76, overweight, crippled by back injuries and suffering from a
heart condition, Gentile pleaded guilty to the charges — knowing that
doing so meant a certain prison sentence — in spite of an offer of
leniency and a chance at the $5 million reward if he helped recover the
art.
Gentile's lawyer, A. Ryan McGuigan, accused the FBI of
concocting the drug case to pressure Gentile to cooperate in the Gardner
investigation. The judge brushed aside the argument, concluding that
Gentile did not need to be persuaded by an FBI informant to engage in
the profitable sale of prescription painkillers. In any event, McGuigan
said Gentile had nothing to trade the government for leniency or the
reward, no matter how badly he wanted both.
As
he settles into prison, Gentile could become another dead end in the
succession of dead ends that have characterized the Gardner
investigation. But the account of how he became, at least briefly, the
best potential lead in the Gardner case offers a glimpse inside a
sensational robbery from which the art world may never recover.
Gentile And The Gardner
The
FBI will not discuss Gentile in the context of the Gardner robbery. But
its interest has become apparent in other ways, including filings in
court, a sensational press statement it issued in March, its pursuit of
Gentile's Boston associates and a curious price list found in Gentile's
home.
Buried among the guns and other odd items in Gentile's
basement was a list of the stolen Gardner paintings and accompanying
values. An infamous art thief from Massachusetts said recently that he
wrote the list and that Gentile probably acquired it, in a transaction
not directly related to the robbery that may have been nothing more than
an attempted swindle.
There are signs, too, that government
investigators are not persuaded by what one described as Gentile's
consistent denials. A federal prosecutor said in court that an FBI
polygraph examiner concluded there is a 99 percent probability that
Gentile was not telling the truth last year when he denied knowing
anything about the stolen art. Gentile's lawyer said the results are
false because the test was improperly administered.
A year ago,
dozens of FBI agents swarmed over Gentile's suburban yard. They found an
empty hole someone had dug and apparently tried to conceal beneath a
storage shed in his backyard.
Federal
prosecutors said in court that Gentile was such a fixture in organized
crime in Boston by the middle to late 1990s that he, with Guarente, was
sworn in as a member of the Boston faction of a Mafia family that is
active in Philadelphia. In a dramatic press statement in March 18, the
FBI claimed the stolen paintings were moved to Connecticut, at least for
a time, and to Pennsylvania. The bureau issued the statement on the
23rd anniversary of the robbery:
"The FBI believes with a high
degree of confidence that in the years after the theft, the art was
transported to Connecticut and the Philadelphia region, and some of the
art was taken to Philadelphia, where it was offered for sale by those
responsible for the theft. With that same confidence, we have identified
the thieves, who are members of a criminal organization with a base in
the mid-Atlantic states and New England."
Characteristically, the bureau will not elaborate.
Not
only does Gentile deny being a member of the mafia, he denies knowingly
associating with gangsters. If he is being truthful, people who know
him say he is one of the world's most unlucky men because circumstance
in which he has become entangled.
Some of the most important art
ever created disappeared at about 1:30 a.m. on March 18, 1990, as St.
Patrick's Day celebrations wound down across Boston. Two thieves dressed
as police officers bluffed their way into the museum, a century-old,
Italianate mansion full of uninsured art and protected by an outdated
security system
They bound the museum security guards and battered
13 masterworks from the museum walls before driving away in a red car
fewer than 90 minutes later.
Among the missing art: a Vermeer, a
Manet and five drawings by Degas. Two of the paintings — "Storm on the
Sea of Galilee," Rembrandt's only known seascape, and Vermeer's "The
Concert" — could be worth substantially more than $100 million, if
anyone could find away to unload some of the world's hottest art.
Cooking For The Boys
In
Hartford, Gentile seemed to inhabit a different world. He is short and
round, with a high forehead. His hair is white and he leans heavily on a
cane when he walks. He has penetrating eyes and is a pleasant
conversationalist when he chooses.
Over the last eight years, he
could be found most days at Clean Country Cars, a garage and used car
lot on Franklin Avenue in the Hartford's South End. He put a stove and a
refrigerator in a service bay and, as he wrote in a court filing,
"cooked lunch for the boys."
"I like to cook," Gentile once said. "Macaronis. Chicken."
The
list of attendees at his luncheons in bay No. 1, according to someone
familiar with the events, could read like a federal indictment. Among
others: Hartford tough guy and mob soldier Anthony Volpe and John "Fast
Jack" Farrell, the Patriarca family's card and dice man.
Gentile's
arrest record begins during the Eisenhower administration, although
most of his involvement with the police occurred in the 1960s.
Convictions include aggravated assault, receipt of stolen goods, illegal
gun possession, larceny and gambling. He beat a counterfeiting case.
During
three searches of his suburban ranch in Manchester last year, FBI
agents found explosives, a bullet-proof vest, Tasers, police scanners, a
police scanner code book, blackjacks, switch-blade knives, two dozen
blank social security cards, a South Carolina drivers license issued
under the alias Robert Gino, five silencers, hundreds of rounds of
ammunition, a California police badge, three sets of handcuffs with the
serial numbers ground off, police hats and what a federal magistrate
characterized as an "arsenal" of firearms.
There
was a surveillance camera trained on the approach to his home. Hanging
from a hook inside the front door was a loaded, 12-gauge Mossberg
shotgun with a pistol grip, a federal prosecutor said.
Gentile has
giving varying explanations for the presence in his home of the
weaponry and related paraphernalia. He said some of it had been there so
long he forgot about it. Other material probably was dropped off by a
friend who is a "dump picker." Gentile's lawyer said he is a hoarder.
He
is handicapped by back pain, probably the result, according to multiple
sources, of a blow his father delivered with a metal bar when he was 12
years old. He left school two years later to work for his father's
masonry business and became the youngest bricklayer and cement mason to
join the International Union of Brick Layers and Allied Craft Workers.
He took a stab at the restaurant business in the 1970s, but closed his place, the Italian Villa in Meriden, after two years.
Gentile
and his brothers had a reputation as top concrete finishers, according
to friends. When union construction slowed in the 1970s, he went to work
for a builder of swimming pools in greater Hartford.
Meeting Guarente
Gentile
moved from swimming pools to used cars, according to friends and
material filed in court. He met Guarente at one of the automobile
auctions where dealers buy inventory, said associates of Gentile and a
person familiar with the investigation.
A source who claims to
have met repeatedly with Guarente beginning in the 1990s said that
Guarente was a bank robber whose last arrest and conviction, in the
1990s, was for cocaine trafficking.
"Guarente
was Gentile's connection with Boston," said the source. "Until then,
Gentile was his own man. He did his own thing, his own way. Guarente was
a stone cold criminal and robber. He told me he robbed 30 banks and,
toward the end, he was selling huge amounts of drugs."
Said a law
enforcement source: "Guarente was the hub of so many people. He is an
interesting guy because he is not well known. But he knows everybody."
One
of the places Guarente visited, according to a variety of sources,
including an FBI report, was TRC Auto Electric, a repair business in
Dorchester, Mass., a hangout of reputed Boston mob associate Carmello
Merlino.
Gentile met Merlino at least once: He was with Guarente
when he stopped by the garage to talk about having work done on his car,
according to a source who knows all three men.
Merlino and his
crew were on the FBI's list of Gardner suspects in the 1990s, according
to filings in federal court. The legal filings and FBI reports show
that, by 1997, the FBI had inserted two informants in Merlino's
operation. Over the next year, the informants reported that Merlino
treated Guarente like a partner. They also reported that Merlino talked
as if he might have access to the stolen art.
In one of the FBI
reports, an informant said it appeared to him that Merlino "was getting
the authorization to do something with the stolen paintings." A lawyer
with knowledge of a variety of Gardner cases said the informant reports,
collectively, suggest Merlino was trying to take possession of the
paintings.
Merlino also was meeting, according to FBI reports and
other legal documents, with two younger men: robbery suspect David
Turner, who was Guarente's driver; and, less frequently, with Stephen
Rossetti, Guarente's nephew. When he was questioned by the FBI, Gentile
was asked to identify Turner from photographs, said a source familiar
with the investigation.
While looking for the stolen paintings,
the FBI learned that Merlino and the two younger men were planning to
rob an armored car depot. Agents intercepted and arrested the men on
their way to the depot in early 1999. An FBI agent later testified in
court that, immediately after the depot arrests, he tried to question
the three about the Gardner heist. They refused to talk.
The three
robbers argued unsuccessfully that the FBI, through its informants,
created a conspiracy to rob the depot to leverage them to talk about the
stolen art. Gentile's lawyer failed when making the same claim in court
about his drug and gun indictments.
The Philadelphia Connection
Guarente
also introduced Gentile to Robert Luisi, the Boston mobster who a
federal prosecutor said sponsored Gentile and Guarente for membership in
the Philadelphia mafia — a city where the FBI said some of the stolen
Gardner art was taken.
Luisi
had tried to join, but was not accepted by, the New England mafia, an
associate said. Philadelphia agreed to accept him when he reached out
through a man he met in prison. He agreed and, according to court
filings, became the boss, or capo, of the Philadelphia mob's Boston
crew.
Guarente became Luisi's second in command and Gentile became a soldier in his crew, according to a prosecution court filing.
As
it turned out, Philadelphia's Boston crew collapsed within months of
being created. Within a year, Luisi had been indicted in a cocaine
conspiracy. Worse for Gentile, Luisi agreed to cooperate with the
government.
Gentile's lawyer said in court that Luisi lied to curry favor with the FBI.
During
his interviews with the FBI, Luisi said Gentile and Guarente committed
robberies together. He said they lived with him for a while in Waltham,
Mass., while acting as his armed bodyguards.
Luisi told the FBI
that Gentile always armed himself, usually with a snub nose .38-caliber
revolver and a .22-caliber derringer. He said Gentile gave him a
silencer for his own handgun.
The FBI found a half dozen silencers
in Gentile's cellar, as well as two snub nose, .38-caliber revolvers
and a .22-caliber derringer, according to a government legal filing.
Luisi
said that, in the late 1990s, Gentile was planning the robbery of an
armored car carrying cash from a casino in Ledyard and that Luisi had
introduced him to a crew of Charlestown robbers who could help, a
federal prosecutor said in court.
It was Luisi who told the FBI that said Gentile's nickname was "The Cook."
Gentile
acknowledges using the name "The Cook," according to a government court
filing. But his lawyer said he denies almost everything else.
He
acknowledges working for Luisi, but said he was paid what amounted to
small change for cooking and running card games, his lawyer said.
Another source who knew Luisi in the late 1990s said "Luisi had
apartment where they hung out and Gentile would cook. Gentile was the
cook and the bodyguard."
Within a year of Gentile's alleged induction in the mafia, his network in Boston was in disarray.
Guarente was indicted for selling cocaine on April 1998. He was released from prison in December 2000 and died in January 2004.
Merlino
and his crew were charged in the Loomis Fargo robbery on February 1999.
Merlino died in prison and the others have decades left to serve on
their sentences.
Luisi was charged in a cocaine conspiracy on July 1999.
When Guarente's wife told investigators in 2009 or '10 about the meal in Portland, only Gentile was a alive and out of jail.
A Postscript
One
of New England's most colorful thieves, Florian "Al" Monday, believes
he knows the significance of the list of stolen Gardener paintings — and
their black market values — that the FBI found in Gentile's cellar.
He said it is his.
Monday
said, in a recent interview, that he has been engaged in the murky
business of stolen art at least since 1972, when he and a small group he
recruited stole Rembrandt's "St. Bartholomew" from the Worcester Art
Museum. In the process, one of them shot and wounded a security guard.
The painting was quickly recovered and the gang was arrested. Monday got
nine to 20 years in prison.
Because the Gardner thieves carried weapons, Monday said he was an early suspect in the theft of those Gardner paintings.
"Of
course, everyone thought that I had stolen them since I'm the guy that
invented that methodology, of robbing museums with a gun," Monday said
recently.
He got stung in 2002 when he and a partner, a Rhode
Island swindler who put up $250,000, tried to buy an etching they had
been persuaded was one of the Gardner's Rembrandt pieces. It was a
forgery.
Monday said he believes his list of the stolen Gardner art fell into Gentile's hands under similar circumstances.
Monday
said he drafted the list for a partner, who knew both Gentile and
Guarente. The partner wanted to buy Gardner art because he had lined up a
pair of prospective buyers. Gentile was the middleman through whom
Guarente and Monday's partner communicated, according to Monday and
another source.
Monday said he was putting up the money for the
deal, but would not say where he got it. He said he did not know and
never met either Gentile or Guarente.
"Guarente? I know nothing
about him," Monday said. "I never negotiated any prices for him. I
hadn't heard of Gentile until recently. The list ... was a list of the
paintings and the prices that I was willing to pay for them. That's what
those figures are. It is not their value. It is what I was willing to
pay for them."
The deal fell apart, Monday said, when the partner
suspected that he was being hustled, and that Guarente had no Gardner
art to sell.
Monday
said his partner paid Guarente $10,000 when Guarente said he needed the
money to travel to Florida to obtain whatever art was involved. Monday
said he suspects Guarente never went to Florida.
The partner was
next told that he had to pay to see proof that Guarente actually had the
Gardner art. The proof was to be a photograph, purportedly of the
stolen art.
Guarente mailed the photograph to Gentile. The
partner, who carried a jeweler's loupe, recognized it as a photograph of
a page in an art book. He left with the money but forgot the list.
Conn. man thought linked to heist gets 2½ years
HARTFORD, Conn. — A reputed
Connecticut mobster has been sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison in a
weapons and prescription drugs case that revealed federal authorities'
belief that he knew something about the largest property heist in U.S.
history.
Seventy-six-year-old Robert Gentile (JEN'-tile) of
Manchester was sentenced Thursday in Hartford. He pleaded guilty in
November to illegally selling prescription drugs and possessing guns,
silencers and ammunition.
With credit for time served and good
behavior, Gentile is expected to get out of prison in 10 to 12 months.
He has been detained since his arrest in February 2012.
Gentile's
lawyer has denied that his client is a mobster or has information on the
still-unsolved 1990 theft of a half-billion dollars' worth of art from
the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.
Conn. man gets 2½ years in drugs and guns case; feds said he had info on Boston art heist
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A reputed
Connecticut mobster was sentenced Thursday to 2 1/2 years in prison in a
weapons and
prescription drugs case that revealed federal authorities' belief that he knew something about the largest property heist in U.S. history.
Robert Gentile, 76, of Manchester, pleaded guilty in November to
illegally selling prescription drugs and possessing guns, silencers and
ammunition. With credit for time already served and good behavior,
Gentile is expected to be released from prison in 10 to 12 months. He
then faces three months of home confinement, followed by three years of
supervised released.
Prosecutors were seeking a prison term of 4 to 4½ years. Gentile sought a
sentence of prison time already served and wanted to be released on
probation or home confinement. He has been detained since his arrest in
February of last year.
Gentile spoke at the hearing, telling the
judge he's been a hardworking man all of his life. He started talking
about his wife, saying he loved her, before breaking down into tears.
The case made national news last year when prosecutors revealed that the
FBI
believed Gentile had information on the still-unsolved theft of art
worth an estimated half-billion dollars from Boston's Isabella Stewart
Gardner Museum in 1990.
Two men posing as police officers stole
13 pieces of artwork including paintings by Rembrandt, Manet, Degas and
Vermeer. FBI officials said earlier this year that they believe they
know who stole the paintings but still don't know where the artwork is.
Gentile has denied knowing anything about the art heist and no one has
been charged in the theft. But prosecutors revealed at the sentencing
hearing that Gentile had taken a polygraph about the theft and claimed
he didn't know where the stolen paintings were, which an expert
concluded likely was a lie.
Federal agents said they found an
arsenal of weapons at Gentile's home including several handguns, a
shotgun, five silencers, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and homemade
dynamite. Authorities also searched the property with ground-penetrating
radar in what Gentile's lawyer called a veiled and unsuccessful attempt
to find the stolen artwork.
Gentile and a co-defendant, Andrew Parente, were also charged with selling dozens of prescription drug pills including
Dilaudid, Percoset and
OxyContin. Parente also has pleaded guilty and is set to be sentenced later this month.
Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham said at sentencing that Gentile had
been recorded by an informant saying he had associated with reputed
Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger and another mobster. He did not
elaborate on those associations.
But
Durham
said earlier in court documents that Gentile has been identified by
several people as a member of a Philadelphia crime family who has been
involved in criminal activity for virtually his entire adult life.
Durham said a captain in the
La Cosa Nostra,
Robert Luisi, told authorities that Gentile had committed robberies and
possibly other violent crimes and once planned to rob an armored car
carrying money from a Connecticut casino. Luisi also said that Gentile
once lived with him in Waltham, Mass., and Gentile was his body guard.
Gentile's lawyer, A. Ryan McGuigan, called Luisi's allegations
"hearsay" and said the government has never proven any link between
Gentile and organized crime. He also said Gentile's criminal record,
before the current case, includes only old convictions for non-violent
crimes.
McGuigan said Gentile is a family man and retired
bricklayer, concrete mason and automobile dealership owner. He said
Gentile's last conviction was for larceny in 1996 involving improper
distribution of proceeds from his father's estate. Gentile's other
convictions were in 1956, 1962 and 1963 for receiving stolen goods,
carrying a deadly weapon in a motor vehicle and possession of illegal
firearms, respectively, McGuigan said.
When he pleaded guilty in
November, Gentile said he wanted to spare the state and himself the
expense of a trial and hoped to get out of prison as soon as possible to
be with his ailing wife. Both Gentile and his wife have
heart problems and other ailments, according to court documents.
Lets look at the facts behind the case. First, back in 1998 William
Youngworth offered help to recover the Gardner art if he could get
immunity and the $5 million reward offered by the Gardner Museum. The
FBI then embarked on a campaign that saw William Youngworth jailed for
three years as leverage to try and provoke William Youngworth to reveal
what he knew without any immunity or promise of the so called reward.
That failed.
Then Robert Gentile, a made man in the Mafia was asked if he could help
recover the Gardner art to which he also sought immunity and the $5
million reward offered by the Gardner museum. Again no offer was
forthcoming and the FBI used an informant to set up Robert Gentile so
they could pressurize Gentile into revealing what he knew.
Again this failed
Furthermore, the so called reward offer by the Gardner Museum is $5
million for ALL of the stolen paintings recovered In Good Condition,
despite the undisputed fact some were cut from their frames, therefore
the condition would not have been good from the get-go. Furthermore,
what if a single Gardner painting or two or three were recovered, would
there be a delay until ALL Gardner artworks were recovered? Yet another
hook/condition designed to deceive perhaps?
Many well respected and experienced professional people associated with
the art crime business think the reward offer by the Gardner Museum is
bogus and the "Good condition" clause is there to deceive and prevent
the Gardner Museum from being liable to payout if and when the paintings
were recovered. The "ALL" recovered is also another condition to the
alleged reward offer that prevents anyone stepping forward with
information because that may only lead to recovery of a single, two or
three Gardner art works.
Second, the so called immunity offer by the Boston D.A. office was
explained by Boston Assistant D.A. Brian Kelly during the IFAR meeting
in New York back in March 2010 when he explained that anyone seeking the
immunity would have to give up their right to take the fifth amendment,
meaning they would lose their right to silence and would be required to
reveal all they knew about the whereabouts of the Gardner art and who
has been in possession of the Gardner art.
Furthermore anyone seeking immunity would also be required to testify against those in possession of the Gardner art.
Therefore it is little wonder no-one has stepped forward with an offer
of help to recover the Gardner art given the track history of those who
have tired before and all the conditions.
The only possible solution to demonstrate any semblance of sincerity to
be accepted by an evermore skeptical public and anyone who may have
information that helps recover the Gardner art would be for a
clarification of the immunity offer and also a distinct clarification of
the reward offer by the Gardner Museum.
Anything less just re-enforces the allegations that both the immunity offer and reward offers are bogus and designed to deceive.
GARDNER THEFT: 15 YEARS LATER
Print this article
Sunday, March 18, 1990
is a famous date. On that day, the biggest art heist in U.S. history
occurred at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, with over $300 million
in paintings lost. Works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Manet and Degas, along
with several other valuable and irrepacable works, were stolen. To this
day it is regarded as a fascinating and tragic moment in Boston history.
At the heart of the recent controversy around the stolen art is
William Youngworth, who has been portrayed in the press as a central
figure in the theft. Boston Herald reporter Tom Mashberg has
claimed that Youngworth sent him to a warehouse where he witnessed one
of the missing works: the famed Rembrandt painting "Christ In A Storm On
The Sea Of Galilee".
Recently, Mr. Youngworth wrote to Big RED & Shiny,
stating that he has been mis-represented. After much consideration, Big
RED has offered Mr. Youngworth an opportunity to state his case, and
present his side of the story and the subsequent interpretations of the
Boston press. Below is his view, in his own words, offered to enlighten
any discussion around the stolen artworks of the Isabella Stewart
Gardner Museum.
----
The most recently 're-newed' efforts by the
Gardner Museum
to recover their former property is this week's request was for the
person who reached out to them in 1994 contact them again. Like 1994 was
the only time??? Please!
[1]
Is it because that person offered just enough of their neck to get
it whacked off by demonstrating control? Allow me to be so bold as to
make another prediction, like I did after they lowered the boom on me in
1997.
That was their last chance. They carved the olive branch to a fine point and stuck it in my eye. The author they seek has passed away.
Mr. Kurkjian's feature was very interesting.
While I don't care for Mr. Kurkjian after his bullying tactics of March 2004,
you cannot take away from the fact that he is smart with a lot of feds
whispering things in his ears that other reporters would die for. But he
works for
The Boston Globe which has some editorial integrity, most the time.
Then, of course, not to be out-done by the Globe (the very Globe
that fired him for same reasons the Herald hired him), we hear from Tom
Mashberg. The very same reporter that gave us the sensational summer of
1997 with banner headlines of "We've seen it". That was the tale where I
supposedly took him to a warehouse and showed him the
Storm On The Sea Of Galilee. Hey Tom, where did all that happen again?
Mr. Mashberg gives the public some tripe about another cell-mate
tale. I guess he hasn't learned his lesson about cell-mate's with tales
to tell. Poor Tom. Ever since he got tossed out of the Gardner car he's
been pouring the nasties on me. Tom, we can't hear your tinhorn out
here.
I haven't settled on the title of my book yet. Either
Dirty Pictures or
Tom's Tinhorn.
You would think those con artists would have packed it in by now.
Just last week I received an approach from a party in Las Vegas offering
to place Five Million in a Hong Kong Bank for me. So I sniff at the
bait. In the story this person fobs herself off as a Las Vegas art
dealer with a line like she is
Julia Roberts in
Ocean's 11.
When I tell her how the process starts to even see if the new owners
want to sell their new acquisitions back, the scam wore its tread off
real quick.
The "art dealer" turns out to be a Las Vegas Dominatrix who's claim
to fame was some lie she skillfully crafted about having Bill Bennet as
one of her 'clients'. I've had some funny scams run on me but this was
the best yet. Check out this "art dealer" at
their website.
Too funny. When I give him/her the "run along" I get a nasty diatribe
and how she was going to my old sell-out lawyer and go around me with a
crew doing 30 years in a Federal Prison. The same crew who the FBI said
was plotting to kidnap my little boy to get at the Gardner stash. Sounds
like they have it, huh? But because it is me and a flea has more rights
in the Commonwealth then my family has, conspiracy to kidnap a little
boy for a 300 million dollar ransom is fluffed off.
Trust me. No one on the face of God's earth wishes the 1994 author could write back more than me and a little boy.
Well who knows. Maybe the Gardner will get lucky and someone is
hard-up enough to chase that fake reward. When one of their Trustees
turned over my sincere personal letter to a Tabloid for publication last
year my debt to him was settled. All he had to do was send a post card
to a P.O. Box saying "yes" and he would have been talking to the people
he needs to talk to now.
As for me. I found a woman who loves me. My little boy is growing
into a fine man. Our life is nice and private. We have a beautiful home
full of love and the Gardner can do their Blanche DuBouir act again next
year.
Sorry everyone. I did my best but the frauds of the Fenway make too
much off this thing to wrap it up. Hell, half of those things were
misattributed to start with. I am left with one question from Mr.
Kurkjian's feature:
How did the robber know the security console so well? He knows, but not telling goes with the deal he made for what he got.
----
[1] "Gardner Museum Seeks Tips On Thefts",
The Boston Globe, March 14, 2005
Links to articles about the Gardner Museum theft and William Youngworth:
Big RED & Shiny news item - "New Leads In Art's Biggest Whodunnit" - BRS #2
The Boston Globe - "New theory airs on Gardner museum theft" By Shelley Murphy and Stephen Kurkjian
Court TV's CrimeLibrary.com - "The Biggest U.S. Art Theft"
The Boston Phoenix - "Don't Quote Me -We've Seen It!" by Dan Kennedy
The Boston Herald - "Documents show Gardner gadfly was informant" By Tom Mashberg
The Guardian - "The Art of the Heist"
CNN - "The Gardner Museum Heist"
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum website
Information from the Gardner Museum regarding the theft and reward for the return of stolen artwork
- See more at:
http://www.bigredandshiny.com/cgi-bin/BRS.cgi?section=article&issue=20&article=YOUNGWORTH_GARDNER_THEFT_15_216622#sthash.JV6Dyz85.dpuf
GARDNER THEFT: 15 YEARS LATER
Print this article
Sunday, March 18, 1990
is a famous date. On that day, the biggest art heist in U.S. history
occurred at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, with over $300 million
in paintings lost. Works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Manet and Degas, along
with several other valuable and irrepacable works, were stolen. To this
day it is regarded as a fascinating and tragic moment in Boston history.
At the heart of the recent controversy around the stolen art is
William Youngworth, who has been portrayed in the press as a central
figure in the theft. Boston Herald reporter Tom Mashberg has
claimed that Youngworth sent him to a warehouse where he witnessed one
of the missing works: the famed Rembrandt painting "Christ In A Storm On
The Sea Of Galilee".
Recently, Mr. Youngworth wrote to Big RED & Shiny,
stating that he has been mis-represented. After much consideration, Big
RED has offered Mr. Youngworth an opportunity to state his case, and
present his side of the story and the subsequent interpretations of the
Boston press. Below is his view, in his own words, offered to enlighten
any discussion around the stolen artworks of the Isabella Stewart
Gardner Museum.
----
The most recently 're-newed' efforts by the
Gardner Museum
to recover their former property is this week's request was for the
person who reached out to them in 1994 contact them again. Like 1994 was
the only time??? Please!
[1]
Is it because that person offered just enough of their neck to get
it whacked off by demonstrating control? Allow me to be so bold as to
make another prediction, like I did after they lowered the boom on me in
1997.
That was their last chance. They carved the olive branch to a fine point and stuck it in my eye. The author they seek has passed away.
Mr. Kurkjian's feature was very interesting.
While I don't care for Mr. Kurkjian after his bullying tactics of March 2004,
you cannot take away from the fact that he is smart with a lot of feds
whispering things in his ears that other reporters would die for. But he
works for
The Boston Globe which has some editorial integrity, most the time.
Then, of course, not to be out-done by the Globe (the very Globe
that fired him for same reasons the Herald hired him), we hear from Tom
Mashberg. The very same reporter that gave us the sensational summer of
1997 with banner headlines of "We've seen it". That was the tale where I
supposedly took him to a warehouse and showed him the
Storm On The Sea Of Galilee. Hey Tom, where did all that happen again?
Mr. Mashberg gives the public some tripe about another cell-mate
tale. I guess he hasn't learned his lesson about cell-mate's with tales
to tell. Poor Tom. Ever since he got tossed out of the Gardner car he's
been pouring the nasties on me. Tom, we can't hear your tinhorn out
here.
I haven't settled on the title of my book yet. Either
Dirty Pictures or
Tom's Tinhorn.
You would think those con artists would have packed it in by now.
Just last week I received an approach from a party in Las Vegas offering
to place Five Million in a Hong Kong Bank for me. So I sniff at the
bait. In the story this person fobs herself off as a Las Vegas art
dealer with a line like she is
Julia Roberts in
Ocean's 11.
When I tell her how the process starts to even see if the new owners
want to sell their new acquisitions back, the scam wore its tread off
real quick.
The "art dealer" turns out to be a Las Vegas Dominatrix who's claim
to fame was some lie she skillfully crafted about having Bill Bennet as
one of her 'clients'. I've had some funny scams run on me but this was
the best yet. Check out this "art dealer" at
their website.
Too funny. When I give him/her the "run along" I get a nasty diatribe
and how she was going to my old sell-out lawyer and go around me with a
crew doing 30 years in a Federal Prison. The same crew who the FBI said
was plotting to kidnap my little boy to get at the Gardner stash. Sounds
like they have it, huh? But because it is me and a flea has more rights
in the Commonwealth then my family has, conspiracy to kidnap a little
boy for a 300 million dollar ransom is fluffed off.
Trust me. No one on the face of God's earth wishes the 1994 author could write back more than me and a little boy.
Well who knows. Maybe the Gardner will get lucky and someone is
hard-up enough to chase that fake reward. When one of their Trustees
turned over my sincere personal letter to a Tabloid for publication last
year my debt to him was settled. All he had to do was send a post card
to a P.O. Box saying "yes" and he would have been talking to the people
he needs to talk to now.
As for me. I found a woman who loves me. My little boy is growing
into a fine man. Our life is nice and private. We have a beautiful home
full of love and the Gardner can do their Blanche DuBouir act again next
year.
Sorry everyone. I did my best but the frauds of the Fenway make too
much off this thing to wrap it up. Hell, half of those things were
misattributed to start with. I am left with one question from Mr.
Kurkjian's feature:
How did the robber know the security console so well? He knows, but not telling goes with the deal he made for what he got.
----
[1] "Gardner Museum Seeks Tips On Thefts",
The Boston Globe, March 14, 2005
Links to articles about the Gardner Museum theft and William Youngworth:
Big RED & Shiny news item - "New Leads In Art's Biggest Whodunnit" - BRS #2
The Boston Globe - "New theory airs on Gardner museum theft" By Shelley Murphy and Stephen Kurkjian
Court TV's CrimeLibrary.com - "The Biggest U.S. Art Theft"
The Boston Phoenix - "Don't Quote Me -We've Seen It!" by Dan Kennedy
The Boston Herald - "Documents show Gardner gadfly was informant" By Tom Mashberg
The Guardian - "The Art of the Heist"
CNN - "The Gardner Museum Heist"
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum website
Information from the Gardner Museum regarding the theft and reward for the return of stolen artwork
- See more at:
http://www.bigredandshiny.com/cgi-bin/BRS.cgi?section=article&issue=20&article=YOUNGWORTH_GARDNER_THEFT_15_216622#sthash.JV6Dyz85.dpuf
GARDNER THEFT: 15 YEARS LATER
Print this article
Sunday, March 18, 1990
is a famous date. On that day, the biggest art heist in U.S. history
occurred at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, with over $300 million
in paintings lost. Works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Manet and Degas, along
with several other valuable and irrepacable works, were stolen. To this
day it is regarded as a fascinating and tragic moment in Boston history.
At the heart of the recent controversy around the stolen art is
William Youngworth, who has been portrayed in the press as a central
figure in the theft. Boston Herald reporter Tom Mashberg has
claimed that Youngworth sent him to a warehouse where he witnessed one
of the missing works: the famed Rembrandt painting "Christ In A Storm On
The Sea Of Galilee".
Recently, Mr. Youngworth wrote to Big RED & Shiny,
stating that he has been mis-represented. After much consideration, Big
RED has offered Mr. Youngworth an opportunity to state his case, and
present his side of the story and the subsequent interpretations of the
Boston press. Below is his view, in his own words, offered to enlighten
any discussion around the stolen artworks of the Isabella Stewart
Gardner Museum.
----
The most recently 're-newed' efforts by the
Gardner Museum
to recover their former property is this week's request was for the
person who reached out to them in 1994 contact them again. Like 1994 was
the only time??? Please!
[1]
Is it because that person offered just enough of their neck to get
it whacked off by demonstrating control? Allow me to be so bold as to
make another prediction, like I did after they lowered the boom on me in
1997.
That was their last chance. They carved the olive branch to a fine point and stuck it in my eye. The author they seek has passed away.
Mr. Kurkjian's feature was very interesting.
While I don't care for Mr. Kurkjian after his bullying tactics of March 2004,
you cannot take away from the fact that he is smart with a lot of feds
whispering things in his ears that other reporters would die for. But he
works for
The Boston Globe which has some editorial integrity, most the time.
Then, of course, not to be out-done by the Globe (the very Globe
that fired him for same reasons the Herald hired him), we hear from Tom
Mashberg. The very same reporter that gave us the sensational summer of
1997 with banner headlines of "We've seen it". That was the tale where I
supposedly took him to a warehouse and showed him the
Storm On The Sea Of Galilee. Hey Tom, where did all that happen again?
Mr. Mashberg gives the public some tripe about another cell-mate
tale. I guess he hasn't learned his lesson about cell-mate's with tales
to tell. Poor Tom. Ever since he got tossed out of the Gardner car he's
been pouring the nasties on me. Tom, we can't hear your tinhorn out
here.
I haven't settled on the title of my book yet. Either
Dirty Pictures or
Tom's Tinhorn.
You would think those con artists would have packed it in by now.
Just last week I received an approach from a party in Las Vegas offering
to place Five Million in a Hong Kong Bank for me. So I sniff at the
bait. In the story this person fobs herself off as a Las Vegas art
dealer with a line like she is
Julia Roberts in
Ocean's 11.
When I tell her how the process starts to even see if the new owners
want to sell their new acquisitions back, the scam wore its tread off
real quick.
The "art dealer" turns out to be a Las Vegas Dominatrix who's claim
to fame was some lie she skillfully crafted about having Bill Bennet as
one of her 'clients'. I've had some funny scams run on me but this was
the best yet. Check out this "art dealer" at
their website.
Too funny. When I give him/her the "run along" I get a nasty diatribe
and how she was going to my old sell-out lawyer and go around me with a
crew doing 30 years in a Federal Prison. The same crew who the FBI said
was plotting to kidnap my little boy to get at the Gardner stash. Sounds
like they have it, huh? But because it is me and a flea has more rights
in the Commonwealth then my family has, conspiracy to kidnap a little
boy for a 300 million dollar ransom is fluffed off.
Trust me. No one on the face of God's earth wishes the 1994 author could write back more than me and a little boy.
Well who knows. Maybe the Gardner will get lucky and someone is
hard-up enough to chase that fake reward. When one of their Trustees
turned over my sincere personal letter to a Tabloid for publication last
year my debt to him was settled. All he had to do was send a post card
to a P.O. Box saying "yes" and he would have been talking to the people
he needs to talk to now.
As for me. I found a woman who loves me. My little boy is growing
into a fine man. Our life is nice and private. We have a beautiful home
full of love and the Gardner can do their Blanche DuBouir act again next
year.
Sorry everyone. I did my best but the frauds of the Fenway make too
much off this thing to wrap it up. Hell, half of those things were
misattributed to start with. I am left with one question from Mr.
Kurkjian's feature:
How did the robber know the security console so well? He knows, but not telling goes with the deal he made for what he got.
----
[1] "Gardner Museum Seeks Tips On Thefts",
The Boston Globe, March 14, 2005
Links to articles about the Gardner Museum theft and William Youngworth:
Big RED & Shiny news item - "New Leads In Art's Biggest Whodunnit" - BRS #2
The Boston Globe - "New theory airs on Gardner museum theft" By Shelley Murphy and Stephen Kurkjian
Court TV's CrimeLibrary.com - "The Biggest U.S. Art Theft"
The Boston Phoenix - "Don't Quote Me -We've Seen It!" by Dan Kennedy
The Boston Herald - "Documents show Gardner gadfly was informant" By Tom Mashberg
The Guardian - "The Art of the Heist"
CNN - "The Gardner Museum Heist"
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum website
Information from the Gardner Museum regarding the theft and reward for the return of stolen artwork
- See more at:
http://www.bigredandshiny.com/cgi-bin/BRS.cgi?section=article&issue=20&article=YOUNGWORTH_GARDNER_THEFT_15_216622#sthash.JV6Dyz85.dpuf
