Art thief Myles Connor pleads guilty in Mendon hay heist

MILFORD —

Milford District Court Judge Robert Calagione has ordered notorious art thief Myles J. Connor to pay $300 in fines and serve one year of probation after Connor pleaded guilty to an Aug. 31 theft in Mendon.

On Oct. 13, the 68-year-old Connor, of 21 Residential Lane, Blackstone, pleaded guilty to trespassing, larceny from a building and larceny under $250. He pleaded not guilty to being a common and notorious thief, according to court documents.

Calagione dropped the charge of Connor being a common and notorious thief after defense attorney Richard Eustis argued that the conditions for that charge did not apply to the theft, according to court documents.

Police said officers caught Connor stealing bales of hay from Twin Elm Farm on Bates Street in Mendon on Aug. 31, arresting him at 11:44 p.m. after a brief foot chase.

Connor was ordered Monday to pay $100 for each guilty charge, serve probation until Nov. 5, 2012, and to stay away from the Twin Elm Farm and its owners and employees, according to the documents.

For decades, Connor made headlines for crimes, both alleged and admitted.

In 2009, he released a book called "The Art of the Heist: Confessions of a Master Art Thief, Rock-and-Roller, and Prodigal Son," a memoir profiling his career as a cat burglar, con man, thief and museum heister.

In 1966, he was arrested after a rooftop shootout in Boston that ended with both a state police captain and Connor being shot. In 1973, Connor was arrested after leading undercover FBI agents to dozens of paintings that were stolen from the Woolworth family compound in Monmouth, Maine.

Connor was convicted in federal court of stealing several paintings from the Mead Museum at Amherst College in 1975 and served 10 years in prison.

In 1981, he was found guilty of fatally stabbing two 18-year-old women in 1973, but the conviction was overturned in 1984.