New Leads in Art Heist
Jakewark
There are a few developments in the 1990 theft of several paintings from
Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner museum that have been getting some
attention in the local papers. The dozen or so works in question,
priceless masterpieces all, including Rembrandt's only seascape, were
stolen when two men dressed as police officers arrived at the museum early
in the morning and subdued the security guards.
Two men have come forward to say that they can broker a deal between the
Feds and the current holders of the paintings. William P. Youngworth III,
an antique dealer, and Myles J. Connor, a former rock musician turned art
thief, were both in jail when the heist went down, and Connor remains in
the federal prison system at this writing. Youngworth was recently the
target of one of those trumped-up ATF raids that you read about in the
right wing magazines: the Feds turned his shop upside down looking for
machine guns, grenade launchers, all this crazy stuff, and had to settle
for charging him with two counts of posessing an unregistered gun (they
were inoperable antique muskets).
The demands made by Youngworth and Connor include immunity from
prosecution on the Gardner theft, the $5 million reward, and Connor's
release from prison. As proof that he could deliver the works, Youngworth
brought a Boston newspaper reporter to a run-down warehouse in the dead of
night, described previously unreported details of the heist, and showed him
what appeared to be a genuine Rembrandt; after a long interview with this
reporter, Gardner officials were described as "very excited."
The Feds and museum staff are proceeding with caution, although the FBI
really seems to have it in for Youngworth. The Gardner has even expressed
some frustration at the FBI's unwillingness to deal with the best lead so
far. Connor, whose release seems directly tied to the artwork's return,
has been held incommunicado by prison officials for over a week; for his
part, the blustery Youngworth said, "If anything happens to my good friend,
those paintings will end up in Japan."
In the past, Youngworth has been as good as his word. He recently
arranged the return of the Bay State Charter seal, a 350-year-old artifact
that had been missing for years. His connections -- along with Connor's --
to the underground art world seem legitimate enough to lend credence to his
claims.
--Jake
cyli
As soon as I heard there was a deal to return the paintings, I
thought, "Oh, yeah, they've probably sold all the copies that they
could manage to the kind willing to take stolen paintings and now
they're trying to get off free." I wonder what anyone who's bought
copies of them feels now and if they'll ever admit being ripped on the
deal? If that's what the theives did, I can't help but feel a tingle
of admiration for their cuteness, if none for their morals.
"If I die of curiosity, who will entertain you with naive questions?"
I only answer my mail on an average of once every two months. Be patient.