Crazy Heterosexual woman smashes millions of $$$ of priceless art
Tock
By MARIE-FRANCE BEZZINA, Associated Press Writer
STRASBOURG, France - The mother of a convicted art thief told a court
Thursday how she used a hammer to destroy irreplaceable works of art and
force them into trashbags upon learning of her son's arrest.
Mireille Breitwieser testified on the opening day of the trial of her son,
Stephane Breitwieser, 33, who is charged with stealing art from museums
across Europe during a seven-year crime spree that stunned the art world.
His most valuable haul was Lucas Cranach the Elder's "Sybille, Princess of
Cleves," valued at up to $9 million and taken from a museum in Baden-Baden,
Germany, in 1995, according to experts.
The Art Loss Register in Britain says the masterpiece is among those
believed to have been destroyed.
Prosecutors said that upon learning of her son's arrest, she rushed into his
bedroom and chopped up paintings. She allegedly forced treasures down the
waste disposal or threw others into the Rhine-Rhone canal near the Swiss
border. She also hid some religious works in a chapel, officials say.
"I blew a fuse," Mireille Breitwieser, who also faces charges, told the
court Thursday. "I put everything into trash bags, the metalwork, the
ancient porcelains, the ivories, paintings. ... I hit them with a hammer to
push them down."
She said she believed her son had bought the works at flea markets. "She is
naive and knows nothing of the value of things," Breitwieser said of his
mother.
She faces charges of concealment and destruction of stolen goods, and risks
five years in prison if convicted by the court in Strasbourg. Anne-Catherine
Kleinklauss, the son's ex-girlfriend who acted as a lookout, is accused of
receiving stolen items.
Her son, a former waiter who once told a Swiss court that his desire to
acquire art "became a compulsion," said he had been visiting museums alone
since he was 10 and had a passion for works from the 16th, 17th and 18th
centuries.
Of his mother, he said: "She threw my life into the trash can."
Defense lawyer Joseph Moser said Stephane Breitwieser was motivated solely
by a love of art. "This is truly passion in its purest form," he said.
"There was no desire for cupidity, no desire for lucre," Moser told
reporters outside the courtroom. "He never resold, or sought to resell, a
work of art."
Prosecutors in France have estimated the value of the haul at up to $1.32
billion. But others have offered significantly lower estimates and Swiss
authorities have also said it was unclear how much the stolen art was worth.
Bernard Dastries, an official from a French government office for combatting
trafficking in cultural relics, told reporters Thursday that the haul was
worth an estimated $13 million to $20 million.
Breitwieser, from a well-to-do family in the eastern region of Alsace, could
face up to three years in jail for allegedly stealing 23 works in France,
plus two in Denmark and one in Austria.
Officials say he stole paintings, tapestries, silver and ivory pieces, and
books from 140 museums in Europe starting in 1995. Swiss police arrested him
in November 2001 when he returned to a museum to wipe away his fingerprints
after stealing a hunting horn.
In the Swiss court, Breitwieser confessed to stealing 239 paintings and
museum works, including thefts in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France,
Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. His hauls included works by
Flemish artist Peter Bruegel and French painters Francois Boucher and
Antoine Watteau.
Swiss authorities sentenced him to four years in prison and banned him from
the country for 15 years. They extradited him to France in July 2004.