Pratiksha Shome
Nine persons have been charged federally with stealing works of art and sports memorabilia valued at millions of dollars, including an Andy Warhol silkscreen and a Jackson Pollock painting, according to the announcement made on Thursday by U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania Gerard M. Karam. Over two decades, the theft ring targeted 20 museums and shops scattered throughout the East Coast and in the Midwest. Prosecutors think that sports memorabilia, including nine of Yogi Berra’s ten World Series rings, had been melted down into compact discs and sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to Karam’s statement.
According to court records analysed by the Associated Press, eight of the nine suspects turned themselves in to law enforcement, and at least five have made tentative plea deals to accusations of art theft and conspiracy to dispose of significant cultural property items. The suspects are from Pennsylvania. Police are still looking for Nicholas Dombek, the ninth suspect, who is 53 years old.
One of the early crimes occurred at the Everhart Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 2002. There, the suspects stole Pollock’s 1949 painting Springs Winter, which was then valued at $11.6 million, and a Warhol silkscreen called Le Grande Passion, which was valued at $100,000 according to the indictment. “About three years ago, a forensic link at one of the theft sites discovered by a local police agency led us to forensic evidence that linked several of these thefts,” Karam stated.
Source: ARTnews
