After 20 years in prison, Stephen Rossetti goes free — but Gardner art heist remains unsolved
Two decades ago, FBI agents began
targeting Carmello Merlino, suspecting that the Dorchester repair shop
owner with Mafia ties could lead them to masterpieces stolen from the
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum during a brazen 1990 heist.
Efforts to recover the artwork were
unsuccessful, but the agents foiled a plot by Merlino and his crew to
rob an Easton armored car depot in 1999. They arrested two of Merlino’s
accomplices on their way to the depot in a car loaded with guns and a
hand grenade.
Merlino died in prison in 2005, taking any secrets he may have known about the whereabouts of the stolen paintings with him.
But on Thursday, one of Merlino’s
accomplices in the attempted armored car depot robbery was back in
federal court in Boston, before the same judge who had sentenced him to
nearly 52 years in prison for that crime.
Only this time, Stephen Rossetti, now 60, walked out of court a free man.
“Mr. Rossetti, it’s been a long time,”
US District Judge Richard Stearns said as he took the bench Thursday
for a resentencing hearing. “Twenty years later, we’re in the same
place.”
Rossetti’s initial sentence included a
mandatory 30 years in prison because he was designated an armed career
criminal. Combined with his sentence for the attempted robbery, that
made him ineligible for release until 2044.
But, after a string of Supreme Court
rulings involving federal sentencing guidelines, Stearns vacated
Rossetti’s sentence last year after concluding that he no longer
qualified as an armed career criminal.
“As far as I’m concerned, Mr.
Rossetti, you’ve served enough time,” Stearns said. He noted that
Rossetti had already served 20 years, well beyond what current
guidelines call for.
“I sincerely regret my criminal past,”
Rossetti told the judge before he was sentenced, as his son and a
handful of other relatives and friends looked on. “Allow me to be a good
citizen.”
Assistant US Attorney David Tobin had
urged Stearns to send Rossetti back to prison for 10 more years, arguing
that he had led “a life of crime” before plotting to rob the armored
car depot. He described Rossetti as “the armorer” who brought a hand
grenade and other weapons for the attack.
“We believe he continues to pose a threat to society, it’s just that simple,” Tobin said.
Rossetti, who is from East Boston, had previously been convicted of a variety of crimes, including an armored car robbery.
But Judith Mizner, a veteran criminal
defense lawyer who represents Rossetti, said he had not been cited with a
single disciplinary infraction during his years in federal prison,
which she described as remarkable. Federal prisons she noted, “are not
the easiest places in the world to stay out of trouble.”
She refuted the prosecutor’s claim
that Rossetti posed a threat and said he had participated in more than
40 educational programs during his time in prison. His parents and wife
died while he was incarcerated.
It took several hours for the Bureau
of Prisons to process Rossetti’s release, but just before sunset, he
strolled out of the courthouse and into a gleaming Seaport District that
didn’t even exist when he went away.
Only one of Rossetti’s codefendants,
David Turner, remains in prison. After his arrest, Turner claimed FBI
agents told him they suspected he and Merlino were involved in the
Gardner theft and offered to let him “walk” if he helped retrieve the
stolen artwork. Turner said he told them he had no information about the
heist.
In the early morning hours of March
18, 1990, two thieves dressed as police officers talked their way into
the Gardner museum, tied up the guards, and fled with $500 million worth
of artwork.
In recent years, the government
quietly reduced Turner’s prison term by seven years, for reasons that
remain under seal, raising questions about whether he had agreed to help
authorities try to recover the artwork. He is scheduled to be released
in March 2025.
None of the stolen artwork has been recovered, despite a $10 million reward the museum is offering for its safe return.
Rossetti, a close associate of former
Mafia boss Francis “Cadillac Frank” Salemme, was in state prison when
the Gardner museum was robbed. One of his attorneys, Steven Boozang,
said Rossetti would never cooperate against anybody, but would have
readily turned over the stolen paintings if he knew where they were.
“He would have gladly given those up to their rightful owners and went on with his life,” Boozang said.
