Gardner suspect’s sentence was cut
David A. Turner
The government secretly reduced the prison term of a longtime suspect
in the 1990 robbery of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum several
years ago, raising questions about whether he agreed to help authorities
recover the $500 million worth of stolen masterworks.David Turner, who was sentenced to 38 years in prison for the 1999 attempted robbery of an Easton armored car company and not scheduled for release until at least 2032, is now expected to be freed in 2025, according to the US Bureau of Prisons website.
The US attorney’s office, the FBI, and Turner’s lawyer, Robert Goldstein, declined to comment on why, or even when, seven years were shaved off Turner’s sentence.
It’s unclear whether the 48-year-old Braintree native, who emerged as a suspect in the Gardner heist in the early 1990s, provided any information to authorities in exchange for leniency.
However, Turner’s possible involvement in the ongoing investigation surfaced recently during federal court proceedings in Hartford involving Robert Gentile, a Connecticut mobster who is awaiting trial on gun charges and is suspected by the FBI of having access to the stolen paintings.
In late 2010, Turner wrote a letter from prison to Gentile instructing him to call Turner’s girlfriend. She then asked Gentile to meet with two of Turner’s associates about recovering the stolen artwork, according to Gentile’s lawyer.
Gentile, who was cooperating with the FBI at the time, refused to meet with the pair and introduce them to an FBI informant because of fear for his safety, according to court filings.
A federal prosecutor disclosed last week in court that Gentile and his friend Robert Guarente, who died in 2004, unsuccessfully tried to negotiate the return of two stolen Gardner paintings in exchange for a sentence reduction for one of Guarente’s associates. The associate, who was not named in court, was Turner, according to two people familiar with the incident.
When told of Turner’s sentence reduction, Gentile’s lawyer, A. Ryan McGuigan, said in an interview, “I think it means that he was cooperating with the federal government in trying to aid them in gleaning information as to the whereabouts of the paintings.”
He added that an inmate would generally have to provide significant cooperation to get seven years knocked off a very long sentence.
“Obviously, whatever [Turner] was offering didn’t pan out because we’re in 2016 and we still don’t know where the paintings are,” McGuigan said.
In 2013, the FBI announced it was confident it had identified the thieves, but declined to name them, citing the ongoing investigation. Authorities said they believed some of the artwork changed hands through organized crime circles, and moved from Boston to Connecticut and then to Philadelphia, where the trail went cold. Later, the FBI said it believed the two thieves were dead.
Turner is being held at the federal prison in Devens and could not be reached for comment. However, in a 2013 e-mail to a Globe reporter he wrote, “1st and foremost I have not, nor ever will cooperate with authorities.”
In response to a request for an interview about his possible knowledge of the whereabouts of the Gardner paintings, Turner wrote that he distrusted reporters and added, “I am not a treasure hunter.”
The Gardner heist was the largest art theft in history and remains one of Boston’s most baffling mysteries. Two men dressed like police officers talked their way into the museum in the early morning of March 18, 1990, tied up two guards, and fled with 13 pieces of art.
The pieces, which include works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Manet, and Flinck, have never been recovered, despite a $5 million reward for information leading to their safe return and promises of immunity.
After Turner was arrested in 1999 in the attempted armored car company robbery, along with Carmello Merlino, Stephen Rossetti, and William Merlino, Turner claimed the FBI told him that it suspected he and Merlino were involved in the Gardner theft and offered to let him “walk” if he helped retrieve the stolen artwork.
Merlino, a Dorchester auto repair shop owner with mob ties, was targeted by the FBI in 1997 after he boasted to two informants that he planned to recover the art and collect the reward. He was convicted along with Turner and died in prison in 2005.
Turner, who was also a suspect in three homicides, insisted at the time of his arrest that he wasn’t involved in the heist and did not know the whereabouts of the art. He was convicted in 2001 of attempting to rob the armored car facility and a variety of other charges, including carrying a hand grenade.
US District Judge Richard G. Stearns sentenced Turner to 38 years and four months in 2003. He rejected Turner’s claim that the FBI used informants to concoct the robbery plot to entrap Turner and Merlino and force their cooperation in the Gardner investigation. The judge rejected an additional request by Turner to dismiss his conviction in 2009.
There are no details about Turner’s sentence reduction on his criminal case docket in federal court in Boston, indicating that records relating to the reduction are sealed. A flurry of sealed documents were filed in Turner’s case in July 2011.
The only public record of Turner’s reduced sentence is the Bureau of Prisons website, which adjusted Turner’s release date sometime between 2010 and 2013.
A spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons said he couldn’t provide information about the change in Turner’s release date, but said any significant reduction in an inmate’s sentence could be ordered only by the sentencing judge.
Significant sentence reductions are “relatively rare,” said Ed Ross, the agency spokesman, and can occur for statutory reasons such as the prisoner has attended a residential drug treatment program, is deserving of “compassionate” treatment, or that the prisoner has assisted investigators seeking to solve a crime.
Milton Valencia of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Murphy can be reached at shelley.murphy@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @shelley-murph. Kurkjian can be reached at Stephenkurkjian@gmail.com.
Here’s Why the FBI’s Gardner Museum Investigation Focused on Robert Gentile
The Hartford Courant conducted interviews with a Gentile associate who acted as an informant in a failed sting operation.
The 13 works of art taken from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on March 18, 1990 have been missing for more than two decades now, and for the past few years, the FBI’s investigation has been largely focused on one man—Robert Gentile.A story published this week in the Hartford Courant, based on interviews with a Gentile associate who was enlisted by the FBI for a sting operation offers new details as to why authorities have continued to pursue the Connecticut mobster in connection to the missing museum works.
Sebastian “Sammy” Mozzicato was enlisted for the sting, executed in 2014, alongside his cousin and fellow Gentile associate Ronnie Bowes. Mozzicato’s account in the Courant, corroborated by sources close to the investigation, claims that Gentile has had access to the missing art since the late 1990s.
Gentile was first implicated in the Gardner investigation in 2010, based on a claim from the widow of Robert Guarante, a Boston mobster whose Maine farmhouse authorities had scoured in search of the missing artworks. The widow, Elene Guarante, told investigators that her husband had two of the paintings in his possession, but had passed them on to Gentile after a meeting in Portland, Maine.
The Courant reveals that Mozzicato told the FBI that in the late 1990s, he had been assigned to move a package of what he thinks were paintings between cars parked outside a condo in Waltham used by Gentile, Guarante, and other members of their gang, a Boston sector of the Philadelphia Mafia. He said that Gentile and Guarante then drove up to Maine.
Additionally, Mozzicato also revealed that he and Bowes had on numerous occasions seen what he believes is the gilded eagle that was stolen from the Gardner, which served as a finial for a Napoleonic flagstaff. He said he saw the object on a shelf at the used car business Gentile used to own in South Windsor, Connecticut, and that he thinks Gentile sold it at some point. Currently, the Gardner is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of the item, separate from the overall $5 million reward.
The sting, which is recounted in detail in the Courant ultimately failed, with Gentile growing suspicious. He was arrested again in March 2015 and is currently awaiting trial on a weapons charge. While the FBI has given him another opportunity to forgo a long prison sentence in exchange for information about the art, Gentile maintains that he knows nothing.
Prosecutors Reveal More Evidence They Say Ties Robert Gentile To Gardner Museum Robbery
The government disclosures persuaded U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny to reject Gentile's argument that the weapons charges he faces should be dismissed because they are the product of "outrageous government misconduct."
During a strained hearing in Hartford, prosecutor John H. Durham neutralized Gentile's misconduct claim with a rare recitation of some of the evidence collected by the FBI team working the baffling robbery a quarter century ago at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
•Durham said Gentile and mob partner Robert Guarente tried, but failed, to use the return of two stolen Gardner pieces to obtain a reduction in a prison sentence imposed on a Guarente associate. Durham revealed no additional detail, but knowledgeable sources said the beneficiary of the effort was to have been David Turner, who is serving 38 years for conspiring to rob an armored car.
•While he was confined in a federal prison in Rhode Island on drug and gun charges in 2013 and 2014, Durham said Gentile told at least three people that he had knowledge of the stolen Gardner art. Durham suggested in court that Gentile and one of the people drafted some sort of contract involving the art, but would not elaborate outside court.
•Durham confirmed a Courant report that Guarente's wife told Gardner investigators early in 2015 that her husband once had possession of stolen Gardner art and transferred two paintings to Gentile before Guarente died from cancer in 2004.
•Durham said Gardner investigators had reason to suspect Gentile since 2015, when he submitted to a polygraph examination and denied having advance knowledge of the Gardner heist, ever possessing a Gardner painting or knowing the location of any of the stolen paintings. The result showed a likelihood of less than 0.1 percent that he was truthful. Gentile claims the examination was conducted improperly.
Chatigny's speedy ruling from the bench Wednesday was a blow to Gentile, 79, who is accused of two weapons charges for selling a gun to a friend and associate who had been convicted of three murders. The associate was one of two men the FBI recruited to join the Gardner investigators as confidential informants.
Gentile claims he was duped into selling the gun by federal prosecutors and FBI agents who wanted to use weapons charges and the prospect of a long prison sentence to leverage him into helping them recover the missing art. In spite of Durham's claims, Gentile denies knowing anything about the robbery or what became of the art.
"It is my client's contention that if he did commit a crime, he was cajoled to do it by two government agents," A. Ryan McGuigan argued.
McGuigan described Gentile as a tired old man who was trying to live out his final years in peace and quiet when two old friends began goading him to commit crimes, one of which was selling a gun. Gentile, white haired and overweight, was seated next to his lawyer in a prison wheelchair and nodded in agreement.
But Durham blasted the notion of Gentile as a suburban retiree, eking out an existence on a monthly Social Security check. It was Gentile, Durham said, who pressed the informants to commit crimes. Almost as soon as he was released from a prison sentence in 2014, Durham said Gentile — who the government claims is a sworn mafia soldier — was looking for help unloading truckloads of hijacked cigarettes.
During his first meeting with the informants, Durham said Gentile, who has not been charged in the museum heist, was bragging that the FBI had failed to confiscate all of his guns during an earlier search of his suburban ranch home in Manchester.
Durham said a recording made by the informants picked up a series of mocking, profane assertions by Gentile about his view of the competency of the FBI.
"He says, 'The FBI got some of my guns, they didn't get all of my guns,' " Durham said.
There was no reason on the part of the FBI to contrive a crime against Gentile to force him to talk, Durham said. The agents needed only to pick one from the recordings the informants enabled them to make.
Ross wrote:
If I were FBI Boston’s new head Harold Shaw, I would have the FBI do a consent search of residence where Bobby Guarente and David Turner would stay in Revere, MA. I believe the address was/is 21 Roosevelt, Revere, MA.
Last I knew, it was still owned by Bobby Guarente’s younger friend, Jean Marie Wilson.
Bobby Guarente and Jean W. had lived at the farmhouse in Madison, ME with Bobby’s wife, Elene, for a while until it got weird. Elene then asked that she move out. (They had been former roommates in Boston).
I believe Jean W now lives at 6 Belmont St., Saugus — having shared for years a duplex with her daughter Amy and maybe still Amy’s husband, who was Bobby Guarente’s nephew. The nephew is Michael James Guerriero. He may at least know who knew Bobby Guarantee as “Unk” or “Unc.” Michael and his wife Amy (Jean’s daughter) have lived in the other unit of the duplex..
None of the residents would have had anything at all to do with the heist and so I expect they would just grant the FBI to consent to bring in equipment that could see through walls.
Or perhaps they would speak to a reporter and correct any misapprehensions or misstatements of facts above.
@Ross 22209
A note was left at the 6 Belmont St. last year, Saugus
address to further corroborate the information provided by Elene and Mr.
Berghman but the residents did not respond. Daniel W. lives at the
Revere address and so he or Jean likely perhaps could consent to a
search — in view of the $5 million reward.
But the hearing yesterday answered a question that had been part of puzzle: why hadn’t Bobby Guarente sprung “bad boy” David Turner . According to Earle Berghman, Bobby G. viewed David “like a son."
From Mr. Mahony’s follow-up article today (Jan 7) and the prosecutor’s comment yesterday, it is unclear to me whether the prosecutor was referring when such an attempt was made in 1992 (through attorney Marty Leppo with the state rejecting) or in the late 1990s. Or maybe even Mr. Berghman’s, Elene’s and daughter Jeanine’s attempt to return the paintings in 2004.
Maybe the prosecutor was referring to 1992 attempt to return the paintings. Maybe by the brilliant FBI armored car sting in the late 1990s, Bobby G. had just decided that such an offer would again be rejected and that authorities would find a way to prosecute anyone who had been involved in the theft.
Bobby had his own legal troubles and was getting out of prison about the time of the armored car sting prosecution and moving to Maine.
Given Jean W’s total non-involvement, maybe the insight she could shed would advance things.
A Pulitzer awaits whoever gets the next article as fascinating as Mr. Mahony’s article this past week about “Unk."
Jean W. could collect the reward given her bona fides and general niceness.
But the hearing yesterday answered a question that had been part of puzzle: why hadn’t Bobby Guarente sprung “bad boy” David Turner . According to Earle Berghman, Bobby G. viewed David “like a son."
From Mr. Mahony’s follow-up article today (Jan 7) and the prosecutor’s comment yesterday, it is unclear to me whether the prosecutor was referring when such an attempt was made in 1992 (through attorney Marty Leppo with the state rejecting) or in the late 1990s. Or maybe even Mr. Berghman’s, Elene’s and daughter Jeanine’s attempt to return the paintings in 2004.
Maybe the prosecutor was referring to 1992 attempt to return the paintings. Maybe by the brilliant FBI armored car sting in the late 1990s, Bobby G. had just decided that such an offer would again be rejected and that authorities would find a way to prosecute anyone who had been involved in the theft.
Bobby had his own legal troubles and was getting out of prison about the time of the armored car sting prosecution and moving to Maine.
Given Jean W’s total non-involvement, maybe the insight she could shed would advance things.
A Pulitzer awaits whoever gets the next article as fascinating as Mr. Mahony’s article this past week about “Unk."
Jean W. could collect the reward given her bona fides and general niceness.
I think the FBI is doing a great job — even though I think counter terrorism should remain a far higher priority.
At the end of the day, I think the heist represents the greatest act of vandalism in history — I think the two main paintings were destroyed by a flood under Gentile’s shed.
Respectfully, I think those who want to write a big Hollywood ending (like the investigative reporters, FBI and the security director) are in denial in not admitting that.
It was Bobby Gentile’s son who described how upset he was when he realized that the flood had destroyed what he had hidden in a tupperware container under his shed.
p.s. I think it’s a hoot that the defense counsel and journalist and prosecutor are treating the polygraphs the way they do. There is not close to the reliability that they claim — and I am simply amazed to see a defense counsel even indirectly suggest that there is.
Defense counsel’s father’s contingency for 1/3 of the reward for return of the paintings belies defence counsel’s claim that he believes his client when his client claims that he does not have sufficient information leading to access.
-Art Hostage Comments:
Ross, above, raises some good points, not least the allegation Mr Gentile's lawyer A. Ryan McGuigan indirectly has a stake in any recovery of the Gardner art, therefore raising suspicion that even he believes there is a chance Gentile could provide assistance in recovering at least some Gardner art. Furthermore, I wonder if the alleged A. Ryan McGuigan deal applies to other Gentile family members, Elene Guarante etc?
As regards the advice offered by Ross, I am certain Anthony Amore is fully aware of these details and would never leave any stone unturned. The possibility of two Gardner paintings being destroyed, either by water damage, or by fire has to be considered and can be argued as to why the reward clause of "Good condition" has been so rigorously enforced?
Indeed, to be fair to Anthony Amore, he did say to Art Hostage a very longtime ago:
"We don't want to pay a reward for a pile of ashes"
The FBI have been much maligned during the Gardner art Heist investigation, they have been in the unenviable position of being dammed if they do and dammed if they don't, but to be fair, they have only been doing their job and any deals for recovery must be the decision of Prosecutors in the end.
Aside from the two Gardner paintings which may or may not have been damaged beyond repair, there still remains the rest of the Gardner art to consider.
Sadly, what little trust there was historically seems to have disappeared with the recent events and until trust is rebuilt a Mexican stand-off will prevail. Having said that, the FBI will continue to try to recover the Gardner art and prosecute those responsible, not out of any malice aforethought, but because simply put, "it is their job description" and anything less leaves the FBI open to the criticism they could be encouraging further art thefts if they succumb to making deals.
The whole Gardner case is a complete mess, but with some trust and co-operation from all parties, a reasonable, positive outcome can be reached, even if some of the Gardner art has suffered terribly.
Ross, above, raises some good points, not least the allegation Mr Gentile's lawyer A. Ryan McGuigan indirectly has a stake in any recovery of the Gardner art, therefore raising suspicion that even he believes there is a chance Gentile could provide assistance in recovering at least some Gardner art. Furthermore, I wonder if the alleged A. Ryan McGuigan deal applies to other Gentile family members, Elene Guarante etc?
As regards the advice offered by Ross, I am certain Anthony Amore is fully aware of these details and would never leave any stone unturned. The possibility of two Gardner paintings being destroyed, either by water damage, or by fire has to be considered and can be argued as to why the reward clause of "Good condition" has been so rigorously enforced?
Indeed, to be fair to Anthony Amore, he did say to Art Hostage a very longtime ago:
"We don't want to pay a reward for a pile of ashes"
The FBI have been much maligned during the Gardner art Heist investigation, they have been in the unenviable position of being dammed if they do and dammed if they don't, but to be fair, they have only been doing their job and any deals for recovery must be the decision of Prosecutors in the end.
Aside from the two Gardner paintings which may or may not have been damaged beyond repair, there still remains the rest of the Gardner art to consider.
Sadly, what little trust there was historically seems to have disappeared with the recent events and until trust is rebuilt a Mexican stand-off will prevail. Having said that, the FBI will continue to try to recover the Gardner art and prosecute those responsible, not out of any malice aforethought, but because simply put, "it is their job description" and anything less leaves the FBI open to the criticism they could be encouraging further art thefts if they succumb to making deals.
The whole Gardner case is a complete mess, but with some trust and co-operation from all parties, a reasonable, positive outcome can be reached, even if some of the Gardner art has suffered terribly.
Reputed Mobster's Associate Adds New Mystery To Gardner Museum Art Heist
For five years, investigators have focused
on a once-obscure gangster from Hartford as perhaps the last, best hope
of cracking history's richest art heist, the robbery a quarter century
ago of $500 million in paintings and other works from Boston's Isabella
Stewart Gardner Museum.
But what put Robert "The Cook" Gentile at the center of the mystery and why authorities have pursued him relentlessly has never been explained – until now.
In a series of interviews with The Courant, a longtime Gentile associate who agreed to work with the FBI said he told agents Gentile has acted for years as if he had access to the missing art, has talked about selling it and, for a time, kept what appeared to have been a lesser-known Gardner piece – a 200-year-old gilded eagle – at a used car lot he owned in South Windsor.
Sebastian "Sammy" Mozzicato delivered the astonishing account of Gentile and the world's best known stolen art to the FBI a year ago after agents, dangling a $5 million reward as a lure, enlisted him and a cousin as secret cooperators in the recovery effort. Investigators have suspected for years – and Gentile has denied for just as long – that he is withholding information about the art. Agents recruited the cousins, their confidants for decades, as participants in a sting that agents hoped would shake loose enough information to locate the art.
The sting failed when Gentile grew suspicious, Mozzicato said. But before Gentile walked away, the cousins enabled the FBI to record him committing to the sale of multiple paintings for millions of dollars. Mozzicato said he believes Gentile has had access to the art since the late 1990s – which is when investigators suspect he was part of a Boston gang that gained control of the art from whoever stole it.
Sources close to the investigation said Mozzicato's account to the newspaper is consistent both with what he told the FBI and with what agents have collected elsewhere. His story of the art, from the mob's perspective, is now at the heart of the investigation.
A federal prosecutor has even claimed – during a proceeding in an unrelated case – that Gentile "specifically suggested" he has two of the paintings. But, suspicion aside, none of the art has been recovered, and no one has been charged with stealing or hiding it.
The government's assertion and Mozzicato's inside account enrage Gentile, 80, whose health problems have reduced him to rolling around a federal jail in a wheelchair while awaiting trial on weapons charges. He has been locked up on drug and gun charges for most of the last five years.
In repeated interviews over the past year and a half, Gentile has spat angry denials at suggestions that he knows anything about the heist or missing art. But he can be vague, too. He shrugs and smiles when told that people who know him argue that he is a swindler who made himself a top Gardner target by claiming – falsely – that he could obtain the art to cheat would-be buyers.
In a court filing, defense lawyer A. Ryan McGuigan implies Gentile's con is so slick that he duped the FBI. McGuigan argues that Gentile was running a "scam for all it was worth in hopes of getting some quick cash" and "proceeded to lead his merry band of informers and double agents on a merry hunt for nonexistent paintings."
In an interview, McGuigan dismissed Mozzicato's claims.
"Apparently, the government is relying on sources which include murderers, drug dealers and career criminals," McGuigan said. "Not exactly fine company to keep."
One aspect of Mozzicato's account is undisputed: It explains how someone, who for years had law enforcement convinced that he was a second-rate crook, became the potential key to recovering some of the world's most revered art. It doesn't answer why – if Gentile knows anything – he continues to turn up his nose at the reward and submit to continuous investigation and arrest.
Federal prosecutors contend he is a sworn Mafia soldier, and some in law enforcement speculate he is enjoying the consternation he is causing by adhering to the mob's oath of silence. Gentile denies being a member of the Mafia.
Mozzicato played a leading part in the failed FBI sting in 2014 and '15. But he has told agents that he believes Gentile was involved with the art at least 15 years earlier, beginning in the late 1990s. Among other things, Mozzicato said he told the FBI how:
Early that morning, as St. Patrick's Day celebrations wound down across Boston, two thieves disguised themselves as police officers, bluffed their way into the Gardner, an Italianate palazzo in Boston's Fenway. They bound the guards, battered and slashed some of the world's most recognizable art from walls and frames, and disappeared.
But what put Robert "The Cook" Gentile at the center of the mystery and why authorities have pursued him relentlessly has never been explained – until now.
In a series of interviews with The Courant, a longtime Gentile associate who agreed to work with the FBI said he told agents Gentile has acted for years as if he had access to the missing art, has talked about selling it and, for a time, kept what appeared to have been a lesser-known Gardner piece – a 200-year-old gilded eagle – at a used car lot he owned in South Windsor.
Sebastian "Sammy" Mozzicato delivered the astonishing account of Gentile and the world's best known stolen art to the FBI a year ago after agents, dangling a $5 million reward as a lure, enlisted him and a cousin as secret cooperators in the recovery effort. Investigators have suspected for years – and Gentile has denied for just as long – that he is withholding information about the art. Agents recruited the cousins, their confidants for decades, as participants in a sting that agents hoped would shake loose enough information to locate the art.
The sting failed when Gentile grew suspicious, Mozzicato said. But before Gentile walked away, the cousins enabled the FBI to record him committing to the sale of multiple paintings for millions of dollars. Mozzicato said he believes Gentile has had access to the art since the late 1990s – which is when investigators suspect he was part of a Boston gang that gained control of the art from whoever stole it.
Sources close to the investigation said Mozzicato's account to the newspaper is consistent both with what he told the FBI and with what agents have collected elsewhere. His story of the art, from the mob's perspective, is now at the heart of the investigation.
A federal prosecutor has even claimed – during a proceeding in an unrelated case – that Gentile "specifically suggested" he has two of the paintings. But, suspicion aside, none of the art has been recovered, and no one has been charged with stealing or hiding it.
The government's assertion and Mozzicato's inside account enrage Gentile, 80, whose health problems have reduced him to rolling around a federal jail in a wheelchair while awaiting trial on weapons charges. He has been locked up on drug and gun charges for most of the last five years.
In repeated interviews over the past year and a half, Gentile has spat angry denials at suggestions that he knows anything about the heist or missing art. But he can be vague, too. He shrugs and smiles when told that people who know him argue that he is a swindler who made himself a top Gardner target by claiming – falsely – that he could obtain the art to cheat would-be buyers.
In a court filing, defense lawyer A. Ryan McGuigan implies Gentile's con is so slick that he duped the FBI. McGuigan argues that Gentile was running a "scam for all it was worth in hopes of getting some quick cash" and "proceeded to lead his merry band of informers and double agents on a merry hunt for nonexistent paintings."
In an interview, McGuigan dismissed Mozzicato's claims.
"Apparently, the government is relying on sources which include murderers, drug dealers and career criminals," McGuigan said. "Not exactly fine company to keep."
One aspect of Mozzicato's account is undisputed: It explains how someone, who for years had law enforcement convinced that he was a second-rate crook, became the potential key to recovering some of the world's most revered art. It doesn't answer why – if Gentile knows anything – he continues to turn up his nose at the reward and submit to continuous investigation and arrest.
Federal prosecutors contend he is a sworn Mafia soldier, and some in law enforcement speculate he is enjoying the consternation he is causing by adhering to the mob's oath of silence. Gentile denies being a member of the Mafia.
Mozzicato played a leading part in the failed FBI sting in 2014 and '15. But he has told agents that he believes Gentile was involved with the art at least 15 years earlier, beginning in the late 1990s. Among other things, Mozzicato said he told the FBI how:
- In the late 1990s, he was instructed to move a package of what he suspects were paintings between cars outside a Waltham, Mass., condominium used by him, Gentile, fellow mobster Robert Guarente and other partners of their Boston gang, which was a faction of the Philadelphia Mafia. A day or two later, Mozzicato said Gentile and Guarente drove the purported art to Maine, where Guarente owned a farmhouse.
- Not long afterward, Mozzicato said he listened to an animated discussion between Gentile and Guarente about whether they should give what they referred to only as "a painting" to one of their Philadelphia mob bosses as "tribute." Mozzicato said Gentile argued that the painting was "worth a fortune" and told his old friend Guarente "You're out of your (expletive) mind" to give it away.
- Also in the late 1990s, Mozzicato said Gentile gave him photographs of five stolen paintings and asked him to act as an intermediary in recruiting a buyer. Mozzicato said the potential buyer was shocked by the paintings and complained, half jokingly, that they could be arrested just for talking about them. Mozzicato said Gentile then cut him out of the deal, but acknowledged later that it fell through.
- Mozzicato said he and his cousin saw, on repeated occasions, what he believes was the gilded eagle, cast two centuries ago in France as a finial for a Napoleonic flagstaff. He said they saw it often on a shelf at Gem Auto, the used car business Gentile formerly owned on Route 5 in South Windsor. Mozzicato said he thinks Gentile later sold the eagle. Mozzicato said he identified the finial from a photo provided by the FBI.
Early that morning, as St. Patrick's Day celebrations wound down across Boston, two thieves disguised themselves as police officers, bluffed their way into the Gardner, an Italianate palazzo in Boston's Fenway. They bound the guards, battered and slashed some of the world's most recognizable art from walls and frames, and disappeared.
The thieves took 13 pieces, including "The
Concert" by Vermeer and two Rembrandts, one of them his only known
seascape, "Storm on the Sea of Galilee." The art was uninsured under the
terms of the bequest that created the museum and empty frames now hang
where art was displayed.
In spite of the reward and promises of no-questions-asked immunity for anyone returning the art, the investigation has run down repeated dead ends, in many cases because promising targets are dying off among the aging circle of New England mobsters. Nonetheless, a federal grand jury in New Haven was actively investigating last summer and fall.
An Unlikely Break
It was not was until decades after the robbery and the events described by Mozzicato at the Waltham condo during the late 1990s that Gentile moved to the center of the Gardner investigation. It happened entirely by chance early in 2010.
Gardner investigators were in Maine, tracking Guarente, who they believed had managed to take control of at least some of the art. He was a well-connected Boston bank robber and drug dealer who was known by the nickname "Unk."
Guarente's farmhouse was in the woods north of Portland. After his last arrest for cocaine distribution in the late 1990s, he flirted with the idea of cooperating with drug investigators. He didn't. He went to prison, moved to Maine upon his release and died from cancer two years later, in 2004.
Gentile acknowledges that he and Guarente had been friends since the 1970s when he said they met at a regional automobile auction near Hartford. Law enforcement and other sources said the two were sworn in, with others in their Boston gang, as soldiers in the Philadelphia Mafia in the late 1990s.
A search by the Gardner investigators of Guarente's farmhouse turned up empty. But they got a break when they returned the keys to his widow, Elene Guarente. She declined to discuss the encounter with The Courant. But a person with knowledge of the event gave the following account:
After first denying even being aware of the Gardner museum, she blurted out, inexplicably, "My Bobby had two of the paintings."
In ensuing interviews, she said that her husband kept the paintings in Maine and, after his release from prison for the last time, he decided to pass them to an associate.
She said Guarente put the paintings in their car and they drove to Portland, where Guarente had arranged to meet another couple at a downtown hotel. After the couples sat down for a shore dinner, she said the men left briefly and walked outside.
She identified Gentile as the man who took possession of the two paintings.
Gentile Cooperates
Gentile claims he is the victim of lies or speculation by hustlers competing for the museum's $5 million reward. Elene Guarente, he said, is chief among them.
"Everything is lies," he said. "They got no proof."
He admits meeting the Guarentes at the Portland hotel. He said he met the couple regularly. Guarente was sick and broke and Gentile said he was supporting him. Gentile said he and his wife liked to drive and enjoyed arranging weekend getaways or day trips around promising restaurants. He said Portland's vibrant waterfront was a favorite destination.
"Bobby Guarente always needed money," Gentile said. "One day he calls me. He said he needed $300 for groceries. That's what he used to call it, 'Groceries.' He was sick at the time."
"I helped him out," Gentile said. "I've helped a lot of people."
Gentile said he remembers picking up the check because Elene Guarente ordered the most expensive item on the menu – the lobster special.
"I'm a sucker," Gentile said. "I'm the one picking up the check."
He claims Elene Guarente implicated him out of spite. When her husband died, Gentile said he told her that he had health problems of his own and could no longer help her financially.
Complain as Gentile might, Elene Guarente's spontaneous statement early in 2010 invigorated the investigation and brought its weight down on Gentile. To disprove her allegation, he said he decided to cooperate himself. It did not go well.
He submitted to a polygraph examination, during which he denied having advance knowledge of the Gardner heist, ever possessing a Gardner painting or knowing the location of any of the stolen paintings. The result showed a likelihood of less than 0.1 percent that he was truthful, according to a government filing in federal court.
Gentile and his lawyer claim the results are skewed because the test was improperly administered.
The FBI next recruited a cooperating Hartford mobster "to engage (Gentile) in general conversation," according to the same filing. Gentile boasted to the cooperator that he and Guarente were soldiers in the Philadelphia Mafia. He said Guarente "had masterminded the whole thing," and had "flipped" before he died – a reference to Guarente's flirtation with cooperation. When the informant asked Gentile if he had the paintings, Gentile "just smiled," according to the filing.
Prosecutors withdrew Gentile's cooperation agreement early in 2011, claiming he lied when testifying before the Gardner grand jury.
A year later, they were preparing to indict him for selling prescription painkillers. When agents searched his small, suburban home in Manchester, they discovered the cellar was packed with money, drugs, guns, ammunition, silencers, explosives, handcuffs and a couple of odd pieces – a stuffed kestrel and a pair of enormous elephant tusks.
Significantly, they also found a copy of the March 19, 1990, Boston Herald, the edition dominated by the Gardner heist. With the newspaper was a handwritten list of the pieces the thieves stole and corresponding values.
As with just about everything else turned up in the Gardner case, the list of paintings and prices has a murky provenance.
Massachusetts art thief Florian "Al" Monday, who orchestrated the robbery of a Rembrandt from the Worcester Art Museum in 1972, said in an interview with The Courant that he wrote the list and that the values were his estimates of what the Gardner pieces were worth on the black market. Monday said he gave the list to Paul Papasodero, a forger, thief and hair stylist from Milford, Mass.
Gentile said he and Papasodero were friends. When Papasodero died in 2010, Gentile said he attended the funeral. Gentile said in an interview he got the list from Papasodero when, about a dozen years ago, he found himself – inadvertently and entirely innocently – in the middle of a scam by Guarente to sell paintings he believes Guarente did not have.
In spite of the reward and promises of no-questions-asked immunity for anyone returning the art, the investigation has run down repeated dead ends, in many cases because promising targets are dying off among the aging circle of New England mobsters. Nonetheless, a federal grand jury in New Haven was actively investigating last summer and fall.
An Unlikely Break
It was not was until decades after the robbery and the events described by Mozzicato at the Waltham condo during the late 1990s that Gentile moved to the center of the Gardner investigation. It happened entirely by chance early in 2010.
Gardner investigators were in Maine, tracking Guarente, who they believed had managed to take control of at least some of the art. He was a well-connected Boston bank robber and drug dealer who was known by the nickname "Unk."
Guarente's farmhouse was in the woods north of Portland. After his last arrest for cocaine distribution in the late 1990s, he flirted with the idea of cooperating with drug investigators. He didn't. He went to prison, moved to Maine upon his release and died from cancer two years later, in 2004.
Gentile acknowledges that he and Guarente had been friends since the 1970s when he said they met at a regional automobile auction near Hartford. Law enforcement and other sources said the two were sworn in, with others in their Boston gang, as soldiers in the Philadelphia Mafia in the late 1990s.
A search by the Gardner investigators of Guarente's farmhouse turned up empty. But they got a break when they returned the keys to his widow, Elene Guarente. She declined to discuss the encounter with The Courant. But a person with knowledge of the event gave the following account:
After first denying even being aware of the Gardner museum, she blurted out, inexplicably, "My Bobby had two of the paintings."
In ensuing interviews, she said that her husband kept the paintings in Maine and, after his release from prison for the last time, he decided to pass them to an associate.
She said Guarente put the paintings in their car and they drove to Portland, where Guarente had arranged to meet another couple at a downtown hotel. After the couples sat down for a shore dinner, she said the men left briefly and walked outside.
She identified Gentile as the man who took possession of the two paintings.
Gentile Cooperates
Gentile claims he is the victim of lies or speculation by hustlers competing for the museum's $5 million reward. Elene Guarente, he said, is chief among them.
"Everything is lies," he said. "They got no proof."
He admits meeting the Guarentes at the Portland hotel. He said he met the couple regularly. Guarente was sick and broke and Gentile said he was supporting him. Gentile said he and his wife liked to drive and enjoyed arranging weekend getaways or day trips around promising restaurants. He said Portland's vibrant waterfront was a favorite destination.
"Bobby Guarente always needed money," Gentile said. "One day he calls me. He said he needed $300 for groceries. That's what he used to call it, 'Groceries.' He was sick at the time."
"I helped him out," Gentile said. "I've helped a lot of people."
Gentile said he remembers picking up the check because Elene Guarente ordered the most expensive item on the menu – the lobster special.
"I'm a sucker," Gentile said. "I'm the one picking up the check."
He claims Elene Guarente implicated him out of spite. When her husband died, Gentile said he told her that he had health problems of his own and could no longer help her financially.
Complain as Gentile might, Elene Guarente's spontaneous statement early in 2010 invigorated the investigation and brought its weight down on Gentile. To disprove her allegation, he said he decided to cooperate himself. It did not go well.
He submitted to a polygraph examination, during which he denied having advance knowledge of the Gardner heist, ever possessing a Gardner painting or knowing the location of any of the stolen paintings. The result showed a likelihood of less than 0.1 percent that he was truthful, according to a government filing in federal court.
Gentile and his lawyer claim the results are skewed because the test was improperly administered.
The FBI next recruited a cooperating Hartford mobster "to engage (Gentile) in general conversation," according to the same filing. Gentile boasted to the cooperator that he and Guarente were soldiers in the Philadelphia Mafia. He said Guarente "had masterminded the whole thing," and had "flipped" before he died – a reference to Guarente's flirtation with cooperation. When the informant asked Gentile if he had the paintings, Gentile "just smiled," according to the filing.
Prosecutors withdrew Gentile's cooperation agreement early in 2011, claiming he lied when testifying before the Gardner grand jury.
A year later, they were preparing to indict him for selling prescription painkillers. When agents searched his small, suburban home in Manchester, they discovered the cellar was packed with money, drugs, guns, ammunition, silencers, explosives, handcuffs and a couple of odd pieces – a stuffed kestrel and a pair of enormous elephant tusks.
Significantly, they also found a copy of the March 19, 1990, Boston Herald, the edition dominated by the Gardner heist. With the newspaper was a handwritten list of the pieces the thieves stole and corresponding values.
As with just about everything else turned up in the Gardner case, the list of paintings and prices has a murky provenance.
Massachusetts art thief Florian "Al" Monday, who orchestrated the robbery of a Rembrandt from the Worcester Art Museum in 1972, said in an interview with The Courant that he wrote the list and that the values were his estimates of what the Gardner pieces were worth on the black market. Monday said he gave the list to Paul Papasodero, a forger, thief and hair stylist from Milford, Mass.
Gentile said he and Papasodero were friends. When Papasodero died in 2010, Gentile said he attended the funeral. Gentile said in an interview he got the list from Papasodero when, about a dozen years ago, he found himself – inadvertently and entirely innocently – in the middle of a scam by Guarente to sell paintings he believes Guarente did not have.
Based partly on what the FBI dragged out of
his cellar, Gentile was charged with drug and gun offenses and
sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison. The government told him he could
skip prison and go home with the reward if he led the FBI to the art.
Gentile said he knew nothing and served the time.
When he was released in April 2014, Mozzicato and his cousin were waiting.
The Sting
Neither was what could be called a model citizen. Mozzicato had been charged with crimes repeatedly, but had avoided conviction on charges such as racketeering, extortion and assault. Ronnie Bowes had been convicted of murder.
Mozzicato said he had reformed and was selling cars at a suburban Hartford dealership and said his cousin was selling antiques from a shop in Charlton, Mass., when the FBI tracked them down and offered a crack at the $5 million. The two men, through their families, had known Gentile most of their lives. Bowes had been diagnosed with cancer and, at the time, had been told he had only months to live.
Bowes had left Connecticut years earlier, in the early 1980s, to try his hand at the drug business in South Florida. Something went wrong one night in 1983 after he agreed to sell 50 pounds of marijuana to four men from Tennessee on a swampy key in the Florida Straits, according to court records. When the smoke cleared, the Tennesseans were dead, and someone had shot off one of Bowes' thumbs.
The police caught him in Vernon. He was extradited to Key West, convicted on three murder charges and sentenced to death. An appeals court agreed with his claim of self defense and released him after 14 years. He was back in Connecticut in the late 1990s.
By the time of Gentile's release, Mozzicato said he was persuaded by events dating to the late 1990s and the events at the Waltham condominium that Gentile had access to the Gardner art. Incidents that, years earlier, appeared to be insignificant or unconnected, seemed to have fallen into a pattern, he said.
There was the transfer of suspected paintings between cars and the argument about a painting as tribute to the Philadelphia mob. Mozzicato said he had been baffled initially by the frightened reaction of the potential buyer to whom he showed five photographs of paintings. He said he became convinced when, pressed by the FBI to identify the gilded eagle he said he saw at Gentile's used car lot, he selected a photograph of the stolen Gardner finial from an FBI photo array.
"I'm no art expert," Mozzicato said. "But I know this is bigger than me. It's bigger than Bobby. This is about the people who can't see those paintings hanging on the wall. That art should be returned. Of course, the $5 million reward doesn't sound too bad either."
The FBI arranged to have the cousins be among the first to welcome Gentile home from prison. Mozzicato said he was sitting on a bench at a shopping plaza in South Windsor when Gentile, understated as ever, drove up in his old Buick. Bowes was his passenger. Mozzicato said he jumped in back.
Gentile was so heavy he couldn't fasten his seat belt. Since the Gardner heist had made him a hot FBI target, Gentile was afraid any arrest, even a seat belt violation, could jeopardize his parole.
"He's got bungee cords he's got to use for the seat belt," Mozzicato said. "He says, 'I can't get arrested. The seat belt don't fit. They told me to buy this thing. I'll use this.' He's in the car. He can barely turn."
Mozzicato said he began making Gardner references immediately. He complained that he and Bowes, well-known to law enforcement as Gentile associates, were being harassed by the FBI's Gardner team. He said he told Gentile that the agents knew Gentile had enlisted him in an attempt to sell a Gardner painting. Gentile growled that the FBI didn't know what it was talking about, but referred specifically to the prospective buyer, Mozzicato said.
Mozzicato said agents were listening to and recording the conversation – and those that followed – over concealed transmitters the cousins wore.
He said he and Bowes were soon meeting regularly with Gentile, handing him cash provided by the government, a supposed acknowledge that Gentile, a made member of the Mafia, was the boss.
"We're giving him envelopes. 'Here Boss. How you doing?'," Mozzicato said. "He'd look inside and say, 'Hey kid. You did good today, kid. Who would have thought? This is like old times. Let's go get lunch.'"
The money was meant to reinforce a fiction the FBI hoped would induce Gentile to produce the art. Mozzicato said he and Bowes were claiming that they had created a marijuana distribution network and were flush with cash. More to the point, they told Gentile they had a way to earn even more – the rich New Jersey dealer who was buying their pot had devised a foolproof plan to cash in on the Gardner art.
Mozzicato said the cousins told Gentile that the dealer would pay $500,000 for a painting. The painting would be delivered to a lawyer in Seattle, who would arrange to return it to the museum anonymously and collect a reward under the museum's no-questions-asked offer. Gentile was promised "two ends" of the transaction – the $500,000 up-front and a piece of whatever the reward turned out to be for a single painting.
Mozzicato said he told Gentile: "'If it goes good, the first one, you can do it again, for all the paintings. Everyone's got a chance to make a lot of money.' "
Gentile seemed intrigued, Mozzicato said, but would not act. Over spring and summer in 2014, Mozzicato said the cousins pressed and complained that he was missing a chance at big money. He said Gentile waved the subject aside or ignored them. The reaction was not unexpected, Mozzicato said. Gentile could be obstinate when pressed and suspicious when pressed harder.
Gentile told the cousins that he finally agreed to test the plan with one painting. Mozzicato said he committed over a lunch with the cousins at La Casa Bella in South Windsor. Mozzicato said the FBI listened to the conversation from the parking lot.
"Bobby starts going, 'If that goes over good, we could probably do others'," Mozzicato said. "My cousin and I are thinking: 'Bobby's dead in the water. This is all on tape.' "
Bowes wanted to leave the restaurant that minute to get a painting, Mozzicato said, but Gentile applied the brakes again. Mozzicato said Gentile wanted five days, maybe a week, to put the deal together. On one of those days, Gentile said he would have to take a five-hour drive, one way.
"Here he is saying, 'Yes. I'll get it. We'll do it for half a million. Set it up. I need a week.' My cousin says to Bobby, 'I'll go with you .' Bobby says, 'No, no, no. Me and Sammy got to go. Sammy knows the guy we got to see.' "
Mozzicato said Gentile would not reveal why
he needed a week, where he was driving to, whom he was seeing or where
the paintings were or how many he could get.When he was released in April 2014, Mozzicato and his cousin were waiting.
The Sting
Neither was what could be called a model citizen. Mozzicato had been charged with crimes repeatedly, but had avoided conviction on charges such as racketeering, extortion and assault. Ronnie Bowes had been convicted of murder.
Mozzicato said he had reformed and was selling cars at a suburban Hartford dealership and said his cousin was selling antiques from a shop in Charlton, Mass., when the FBI tracked them down and offered a crack at the $5 million. The two men, through their families, had known Gentile most of their lives. Bowes had been diagnosed with cancer and, at the time, had been told he had only months to live.
Bowes had left Connecticut years earlier, in the early 1980s, to try his hand at the drug business in South Florida. Something went wrong one night in 1983 after he agreed to sell 50 pounds of marijuana to four men from Tennessee on a swampy key in the Florida Straits, according to court records. When the smoke cleared, the Tennesseans were dead, and someone had shot off one of Bowes' thumbs.
The police caught him in Vernon. He was extradited to Key West, convicted on three murder charges and sentenced to death. An appeals court agreed with his claim of self defense and released him after 14 years. He was back in Connecticut in the late 1990s.
By the time of Gentile's release, Mozzicato said he was persuaded by events dating to the late 1990s and the events at the Waltham condominium that Gentile had access to the Gardner art. Incidents that, years earlier, appeared to be insignificant or unconnected, seemed to have fallen into a pattern, he said.
There was the transfer of suspected paintings between cars and the argument about a painting as tribute to the Philadelphia mob. Mozzicato said he had been baffled initially by the frightened reaction of the potential buyer to whom he showed five photographs of paintings. He said he became convinced when, pressed by the FBI to identify the gilded eagle he said he saw at Gentile's used car lot, he selected a photograph of the stolen Gardner finial from an FBI photo array.
"I'm no art expert," Mozzicato said. "But I know this is bigger than me. It's bigger than Bobby. This is about the people who can't see those paintings hanging on the wall. That art should be returned. Of course, the $5 million reward doesn't sound too bad either."
The FBI arranged to have the cousins be among the first to welcome Gentile home from prison. Mozzicato said he was sitting on a bench at a shopping plaza in South Windsor when Gentile, understated as ever, drove up in his old Buick. Bowes was his passenger. Mozzicato said he jumped in back.
Gentile was so heavy he couldn't fasten his seat belt. Since the Gardner heist had made him a hot FBI target, Gentile was afraid any arrest, even a seat belt violation, could jeopardize his parole.
"He's got bungee cords he's got to use for the seat belt," Mozzicato said. "He says, 'I can't get arrested. The seat belt don't fit. They told me to buy this thing. I'll use this.' He's in the car. He can barely turn."
Mozzicato said he began making Gardner references immediately. He complained that he and Bowes, well-known to law enforcement as Gentile associates, were being harassed by the FBI's Gardner team. He said he told Gentile that the agents knew Gentile had enlisted him in an attempt to sell a Gardner painting. Gentile growled that the FBI didn't know what it was talking about, but referred specifically to the prospective buyer, Mozzicato said.
Mozzicato said agents were listening to and recording the conversation – and those that followed – over concealed transmitters the cousins wore.
He said he and Bowes were soon meeting regularly with Gentile, handing him cash provided by the government, a supposed acknowledge that Gentile, a made member of the Mafia, was the boss.
"We're giving him envelopes. 'Here Boss. How you doing?'," Mozzicato said. "He'd look inside and say, 'Hey kid. You did good today, kid. Who would have thought? This is like old times. Let's go get lunch.'"
The money was meant to reinforce a fiction the FBI hoped would induce Gentile to produce the art. Mozzicato said he and Bowes were claiming that they had created a marijuana distribution network and were flush with cash. More to the point, they told Gentile they had a way to earn even more – the rich New Jersey dealer who was buying their pot had devised a foolproof plan to cash in on the Gardner art.
Mozzicato said the cousins told Gentile that the dealer would pay $500,000 for a painting. The painting would be delivered to a lawyer in Seattle, who would arrange to return it to the museum anonymously and collect a reward under the museum's no-questions-asked offer. Gentile was promised "two ends" of the transaction – the $500,000 up-front and a piece of whatever the reward turned out to be for a single painting.
Mozzicato said he told Gentile: "'If it goes good, the first one, you can do it again, for all the paintings. Everyone's got a chance to make a lot of money.' "
Gentile seemed intrigued, Mozzicato said, but would not act. Over spring and summer in 2014, Mozzicato said the cousins pressed and complained that he was missing a chance at big money. He said Gentile waved the subject aside or ignored them. The reaction was not unexpected, Mozzicato said. Gentile could be obstinate when pressed and suspicious when pressed harder.
Gentile told the cousins that he finally agreed to test the plan with one painting. Mozzicato said he committed over a lunch with the cousins at La Casa Bella in South Windsor. Mozzicato said the FBI listened to the conversation from the parking lot.
"Bobby starts going, 'If that goes over good, we could probably do others'," Mozzicato said. "My cousin and I are thinking: 'Bobby's dead in the water. This is all on tape.' "
Bowes wanted to leave the restaurant that minute to get a painting, Mozzicato said, but Gentile applied the brakes again. Mozzicato said Gentile wanted five days, maybe a week, to put the deal together. On one of those days, Gentile said he would have to take a five-hour drive, one way.
"Here he is saying, 'Yes. I'll get it. We'll do it for half a million. Set it up. I need a week.' My cousin says to Bobby, 'I'll go with you .' Bobby says, 'No, no, no. Me and Sammy got to go. Sammy knows the guy we got to see.' "
Bowes insisted that the cousins be allowed to tell the fictitious New Jersey pot buyer to get ready for a painting, Mozzicato said.
Mozzicato said the FBI recorded Gentile answering, "Yes, I'll do it."
'The Deal Sounds Good'
But the next time they met, Gentile was stalling again, Mozzicato said. To prod him, Mozzicato said the FBI arranged to have the cousins introduce him to an undercover agent posing as a representative of the New Jersey pot dealer. Over another lunch, the agent told Gentile that his boss might shut down the pot business if Gentile did not sell a painting.
Gentile responded with a threat of his own. Federal prosecutor John Durham described the exchange during a bail hearing in court earlier this year, providing a rare public statement about the government's interest in Gentile.
"Mr. Gentile specifically stated to the FBI undercover operative that he, Mr. Gentile, is a made member of La Cosa Nostra," Durham said. "Mr. Gentile had specifically suggested that he had two particular paintings that had been stolen in the Gardner incident many years ago. Mr. Gentile became furious with the FBI undercover person because he wouldn't engage in the marijuana deal with Mr. Gentile, at which point Mr. Gentile told the undercover agent, do you know who I am, and stated that he could have people killed and make them disappear."
Frustrated by the delays, Mozzicato said his cousin offered Gentile a way to save face on the chance that the paintings had been lost or destroyed. The FBI knew that someone had dug a hole beneath a shed in Gentile's backyard, apparently as a hiding place. If the art had been buried, it could be ruined,
"Ronnie says to him, 'If you don't have the paintings anymore, if you destroyed them, if you don't want to do it anymore, just tell me. So we don't look stupid. Because the guy in New Jersey is asking. I told him I'd ask you. Sammy said he would ask you. So, if you don't want to do it, just say so.' And then Ronnie says to Bobby, 'If you're just doing this to steal the half a million, that's fine too.' "
"Bobby says, 'No. No. No. I'd never do that,' " Mozzicato said. "And then he goes, 'Let's do it. The deal sounds good. We can all use the money.' "
Into The Woods
Not long after, in August 2014, Mozzicato said Gentile called with instructions. He was to drive to a pay telephone in South Windsor and wait for a call. From the pay phone, Mozzicato said Gentile directed him to a truck stop on I-84 in Ashford.
At the truck stop, he said Gentile ordered him to leave his cellphone and car behind. He said Gentile drove the two of them through the woods for a half-hour or so to a house on the Massachusetts side of the state line. Inside, Mozzicato said a man was seated in a corner and a couple of guys were standing apart, as if waiting to be told what to do. Mozzicato said one of them frisked him.
"So I look at Bobby," Mozzicato said. "He give me the look, like, 'Go with it.' Then, the guy in the corner says, 'So Sammy. How ya doing? I heard about you from Unk."
Unk was Guarente's nickname.
Mozzicato said the man refused to identify himself, which did not seem to bother Gentile. Mozzicato said Gentile told him to explain the plan to sell a painting for $500,000. Mozzicato said he did. He said the man considered for a while and responded with a couple of questions.
"So the guy just comes out with all these hypotheticals," Mozzicato said, "He says, 'Let's just say, hypothetically, not that I have them or anything, these pictures. But hypothetically,' he says, 'Bobby is saying, you got a guy. So, hypothetically, if I had one, or two, or maybe three, if I had them, you could get me this money and do this deal?' "
The man wanted the identity of the buyer. Mozzicato said he told him it was none of his business. Mozzicato said Gentile ordered him to wait outside. A few minutes later, he said Gentile came out and drove them back to the truck stop.
A few days later, Mozzicato said Gentile told him to rent a commercial storage unit and a car. Then, Mozzicato said, Gentile canceled the car. Mozzicato said he accompanied Gentile when he picked up a supposedly indestructible German lock from a used car lot in Hartford's South End, where Gentile used to pass the time with a handful of aging Hartford gangsters.
Then, Mozzicato said, Gentile went silent again. Mozzicato said he believes Gentile had grown suspicious.
Mozzicato said: "Now this kind of conversation starts: He says 'Something ain't right.' He's talking with Ronnie one day, 'You know, Ronnie?. We've been through a lot. You and Sammy are all I got left. But something ain't right.' "
"Then he started with me. 'Sammy boy. Sammy boy. These paintings bring nothing but heartache. They are nothing but a problem.' "
Mozzicato said Gentile complained that, even if he were to cooperate with the government and turn in the paintings, he was convinced the FBI would figure out a way to prevent him from getting the reward.
Mozzicato said, "He says, 'The feds will never let me spend the money. I don't care what deal my lawyer tells me.' "
Six months later, on March 2, 2015, the FBI watched as Bowes used $1,000 in FBI cash to buy a .38 Colt Cobra revolver and six rounds of ammunition from Gentile. Within weeks, Bowes was dead of cancer and Gentile had been indicted on weapons charges.
The FBI gave Gentile another opportunity. If he cooperated, he would avoid a long prison sentence and perhaps collect a reward. He cursed at the agents and claimed again to know nothing about the art.
A federal magistrate declared him a threat to public safety, again, and denied him bail while awaiting trial and the likelihood of another prison sentence.
He is arguing that the charges should be dismissed because of prosecutorial misconduct. He said the gun case was contrived to force him to give up information about the art – information he doesn't have.
Suffolk Downs Was Searched For Gardner Heist Paintings
Suffolk Downs. (WBZ-TV)
BOSTON (CBS) — The search for the paintings stolen in the 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist led authorities to Suffolk Downs a few months ago.
Acting on a tip, the FBI searched a couple of locations at the racetrack in September for some sign of the thirteen paintings, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. But Suffolk Downs CEO Chip Tuttle said their search didn’t come up with anything.
“Obviously, we cooperated fully with the FBI,” Tuttle told WBZ NewsRadio 1030 Monday. “It was actually very impressive, they had a big team, they were very serious, they went through the entire facility sort of with a fine-toothed comb. But the paintings are not at Suffolk Downs.”
Tuttle said the call from the FBI came as a surprise for the staff–that nobody could imagine the long-missing works by Rembrandt, Degas, Manet, and Vermeer could be stashed at the track.
“At first, it was almost humorous,” said Tuttle. “You laugh it off, the idea that these famous paintings that people have been looking for for years might be right underneath your nose.”
But Tuttle said authorities had a theory that, when explained, seemed plausible–that someone may have stashed the paintings there while the facilities were closed in the early 90s, around the time of the heist.
“The track, of course, was closed in 1990 and ’91,” said Tuttle. “It closed at the end of 1989 and reopened in ’92. So, the way they explained the premise was, perhaps someone had stashed them there when the track was closed. Then it made a little more sense that they would be interested in taking a look around.”
Areas of the building that had been closed for more than 20 years were searched, and the FBI teams even opened a couple of old safes that nobody in the track’s current administration could ever remember opening. They found nothing.
The paintings were stolen March 18, 1990, when the FBI says two white men disguised in Boston police uniforms were able to enter the museum by telling a security guard that they were responding to a disturbance. Once inside, the thieves handcuffed two security guards and kept them in the museum’s basement.
The FBI has said in the past that they know who took the paintings, and that those people are now dead–but the feds have never said who the suspects who pulled off the heist were.
In August, the FBI released new surveillance footage from the night before the heist, showing a security guard letting in an unauthorized visitor 24 hours before the art was stolen.
Days later, a Quincy attorney said a former client of his had identified the visitor in the video.
