Man linked to largest art heist in history freed from prison
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A reputed Connecticut mobster who federal
authorities believe is the last surviving person of interest in the
largest art heist in history criticized government officials Monday as
he adjusted to being back home after finishing a four-year prison
sentence for weapons crimes.
Robert Gentile, 82, also maintained he knows nothing
about the unsolved theft of $500 million worth of art from the Isabella
Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990. He was released from federal
custody in the unrelated weapons case Friday.
"I had nothing to do with the paintings. It's a big joke," Gentile said in a phone interview from his Manchester home.
He also blamed federal prison officials for worsening
health problems that have left him unable to get around except in a
wheelchair, and he criticized law enforcement officials for seizing his
money and damaging his home during a raid in the weapons case.
"I'm all crippled up. They had me in a bed for a year chained up," he said. "I should have never been in jail. It's a joke."
Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said they
were reviewing Gentile's comments but had no immediate response Monday.
An FBI spokesman in New Haven declined to comment. Update:
Federal prison officials say there is no evidence to support
mistreatment allegations made by a reputed Connecticut mobster who
authorities believe is the last surviving person of interest in the
largest art heist in history.
The federal Bureau of Prisons said in a statement Monday that it could find no support for the allegations.
"Mr. Gentile went to prison, he's been released, the investigation goes
on. We're not sitting around hoping he tells us what he may or may not
know." Anthony Amore Director of Security Gardner Museum
The art heist took place March 18, 1990, when two men
masquerading as Boston police officers got into the museum by telling a
security guard they were responding to a report of a disturbance,
according to authorities. The guard and a co-worker were handcuffed and
locked in the basement while the thieves made off with the art.
The missing pieces include Rembrandt's only known
seascape, "Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee," and Vermeer's
"The Concert," one of fewer than 40 known paintings by the 17th-century
Dutch painter.
The FBI told The Associated Press in 2015 that two
suspects — both Boston criminals with ties to organized crime — were
deceased.
Investigators believe the paintings moved through mob
circles to Connecticut and Philadelphia, where the trail went cold,
officials have said.
Prosecutors have said another gangster's widow claimed
her husband gave Gentile two of the paintings. Authorities also have
said that Gentile talked about the stolen paintings with fellow
prisoners and once told an undercover FBI agent he had access to two of
the paintings and could negotiate the sale of each for $500,000.
But Gentile, who will be on federally supervised release
for the next three years, has publicly insisted he knows nothing about
the theft or where the paintings are.
Federal agents have searched Gentile's home three times,
including with ground-penetrating radar, in what Gentile's lawyer, A.
Ryan McGuigan, believes were efforts to find the paintings and other
evidence about the heist.
The weapons charges were filed after
authorities found several firearms at Gentile's home in 2016, which he
was prohibited from possessing as a previously convicted felon.
Gentile was sentenced to more than two years in prison in
2013 for illegally selling prescription drugs and possessing guns,
silencers and ammunition. In that case, prosecutors said federal agents
found in Gentile's home a handwritten list of the stolen paintings and
their estimated worth, along with a newspaper article about the museum
heist a day after it happened.
Images of some of the world’s
most coveted masterpieces by Rembrandt and Vermeer adorn the walls of a
cramped office in Boston’s Fenway. A name plate from the frame that held
Manet’s “Chez Tortoni” is propped above a keyboard on the desk.
They
are a source of inspiration and heartache for Anthony Amore, security
director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. He has spent countless
hours in this small room on the fourth floor of the historic palace,
searching for clues in an agonizing quest to recover treasures stolen
years before he was hired to protect the collection.
“When
you are looking for something for a long time and it seems like an
impossible task, you need inspiration,” says 52-year-old Amore, whose
office is filled with reminders of the $500 million worth of artwork
stolen 29 years ago.
Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff
Boston, MA., 02/19/2019, Anthony
Amore is the security director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in
his office, which reflects his all-consuming quest to recover the
masterpieces stolen decades ago. His office has reporductions of the the
lost artwork, including a photograph of the painting The Storm on the
Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt. Globe staff/Suzanne Kreiter
A high-resolution color photograph of Rembrandt’s “The Storm on the
Sea of Galilee” mounted on foam board hangs over Amore’s desk. At 4 feet
by 3 feet, it dominates the room, but is considerably smaller than the
original 5-foot-by-4-foot seascape that was pulled from its frame by the
thieves.
The office walls are covered with smaller images of some of the
missing art. Brackets that once held the stolen “Chez Tortoni” in its
frame are now in a plastic bag on Amore’s desk.
Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff
The hardware that held the painting “Chez Tortoni” by Manet to the wall.
Two thieves dressed as police officers were buzzed into the museum in
the early morning hours of March 18, 1990, and tied up two guards on
duty. In addition to Rembrandt and Vermeer paintings, they got away with
works by Manet, Flinck, and Degas, as well as a bronze eagle finial
from atop a Napoleonic flag and a Chinese beaker, or “Ku.”
The window in Amore’s office overlooks Palace Road, where the thieves parked and were let in at the museum’s side door.
Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff
From his office window, Anthony Amore can see where the theives parked their car the night of the heist.
Scratches made by the culprits are still visible on a square
metal plate resting on a file cabinet in Amore’s office. The stolen Ku
had been mounted on the plate.
Advertisement
None of the artwork has been recovered, despite a $10 million reward
offered by the museum and promises of immunity for those who have the
stolen treasures.
There also are items in Amore’s office that
reflect his other passions: family, politics, history, and literature.
The Swampscott Republican — who made an unsuccessful run last year for
secretary of state — has a framed photograph on the wall of father and
son former presidents, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.
There
is also a postcard depicting Paul Revere, and a copy of President
George Washington’s farewell address, which Amore explains by noting,
“I’m an aficionado of the American Revolution. That’s my thing.”
Photographs
of his two daughters, Alessandra and Gabriela, and some of their school
artwork are also on display. A collection of books — including some
written by Amore — fill a book case. Many are about art and, of course,
art theft.
Amore says his office captures his interests, but “more
than anything you can see the amount of stuff related to the theft is
overwhelming. And that’s really what the theft is: overwhelming.”
Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff
In Anthony Amore’s office is his daughter's sketch of a detective with a magnifying glass hunting for the stolen art.
Even his daughter Gabriela’s sketch, drawn in 2008 when she was 11,
focuses on her father’s unrelenting search. It depicts a girl with a
pony tail, standing in front of an empty frame and peering into a
magnifying glass. She’s saying, “Now I will help my dad find stolen
paintings from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and sleep in my dads
office for the night.”
‘When you are looking for something for a long time and it seems like an impossible task, you need inspiration.’
Amore says he never let anyone sleep in his office, but he has
solicited all the help he can get in his effort to recover the artwork.
Since
Amore took over as security director at the museum in 2005, he has
worked tirelessly alongside FBI agents and federal prosecutors to
recover the masterworks. He’s created a massive database with details of
every tip chased over the last 29 years.
Three file cabinets in
his office are jammed with folders labeled with names of suspects and
“people of interest,” an assortment of gangsters, petty criminals, and
art thieves.
In 2012, the museum opened a new wing and Amore was
moved to a spacious, modern office there. But, the original building,
built by Mrs. Gardner and opened to the public in 1903 drew him back.
He
said he feels more comfortable in the 6-foot-by-15-foot office, even
though it’s often hot and gets noisy when air blows through a ceiling
vent. It’s located above the galleries that he’s charged with
protecting.
“The collection is here,” Amore says of his location.
“Two floors below me is the empty ‘Storm on the Sea of Galilee’ frame.
This is where I should be.”
His office is on the same floor where
Gardner lived until her death in 1924. Her living quarters were
converted to office space, for use by the museum’s director, in the late
1980s. Amore’s office was previously a maid’s bedroom.
Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff
A framed photos of Isabella and Jack Gardner in Anthony Amore’s office.
Amore keeps a photo of Gardner and her husband, Jack, who
died before the museum was opened, framed on his office wall. It’s the
first thing he sees when he opens the door — another source of
inspiration to keep pushing to reclaim the art that belongs in the
museum she left in her will “for the education and enjoyment of the
public forever.”
In 1942, 95 paintings and nine stained glass
works — including works by Titian, Rembrandt, Cranach, Zorn, Vermeer,
and Whistler — were removed from the Gardner museum and sent by armored
truck to an estate in Center Harbor, N.H., for safekeeping during World
War II, according to the museum archives.
The museum’s
photographer, Joseph Brenton Pratt, took photographs of the paintings,
which were hung in their place until the originals were returned in
1944.
Today, a copy of Pratt’s black and white photograph of
Vermeer’s “The Concert” is framed and mounted on Amore’s office wall.
Amore says it was a gift from the late photographer’s son, Christopher,
providing added inspiration to fuel his hunt for the stolen original.
The
investigation is daunting, but Amore says he remains hopeful that one
day the stolen masterpieces will be back on the museum’s walls. He says a
veteran State Police detective speculated the key to the mystery is in
the old files.
Amore points to his cabinet stuffed with folders and says, “So the answer is in here.”
Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff
Anthony Amore, in his office at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. To his left is “Chez Tortoni” by Édouard Manet.
The turbo Paul Hendry plan from empty frames
makes the most sense to me. Drop ALL the conditions on the immunity
agreement. Especially 'works must be returned in "good" condition, as
judged by isg' - this gives the museum an arbitrary out clause to
prosecute and the current owners of the art know it.
And
second, there is zero chance all 13 pieces are currently in the same
place. Yet, the condition on the $10M is that all 13 pieces must be
returned (again, in "good" condition as judged by isg). It's bogus.
It's an impossible reward. Drop the conditions and provide a reward
value for each piece individually.
And second, there is zero chance all 13 pieces are currently in the same place. Yet, the condition on the $10M is that all 13 pieces must be returned (again, in "good" condition as judged by isg). It's bogus. It's an impossible reward. Drop the conditions and provide a reward value for each piece individually.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2019/03/12/office-focused-what-missing/AAZeqTF3M5DLvFZwU32tSL/story.html