Master Thieves

by Kurkjian, Stephen

  I’d been following the trail of the Gardner masterpieces, stolen that dreary March night in 1990, for almost twenty years the day I found myself in Robert Gentile’s living room, in the suburbs of Hartford, Connecticut. As I sat there across from him, it seemed at one key moment that the whole Gardner mystery might unfold before me.

  Gentile, well into his seventies, still wore the leg bracelets that monitored his home confinement while he was on parole from his conviction for selling prescription painkillers to an undercover federal informant. He and I talked at length about how the FBI came to consider him the key figure in the abiding mystery of the Gardner masterpieces.

  All the while, over a couple of pizzas I’d brought along from Regina’s, his favorite pizza parlor in Boston, we were sizing each other up—me pressing him on the holes in his denials, and him seeing how much I knew and, I thought, trying to determine whether I could be trusted to be told something different.

  Gentile has the look of someone who has worked with his hands: He spent much of his life laying pavement. His clothes, though old and worn, were by no means tattered. His face was fleshy and looked as though it belonged to a man far bigger than his five feet six inches and more than two hundred–pound frame. But Gentile’s eyes were large and expressive, especially when we talked about things he was eager to discuss, such as the unfairness of the FBI in believing Elene Guarente, when she told a federal grand jury that she knew her husband, dying from cancer, had given at least one of the stolen masterpieces to Gentile.

  But why, I pressed him, had he agreed to assist the FBI in its recovery efforts if ultimately he had no real access to the paintings? That need for an honest answer seemed to get through to him as we wrapped up our first session, and he walked me slowly, with the help of a wooden cane, to his front door. The late afternoon sun was peeking through the living room’s heavy drapes and he stopped and asked me, for the first time that afternoon, to shut off the tape recorder I still was holding in my hand.

  What, he wanted to know, was he going to get out of the book I was planning to write? I sensed he was asking me a different question, though: What would happen if he decided to tell a different story? I told him I would be prepared to work with him, but it would have to be something different from the denials he and his lawyer had been giving in court and to the media. “If we’re going to work together, you’ve got to be open with me about everything: how you got involved and what happened to those paintings,” I told him.

  I could feel myself holding my breath. For about thirty seconds, Gentile thought about what I had said, his head held low. When he looked up, his eyes had gone dead, and it was obvious that the moment of reflection had passed.

  “They [the feds] set me up and ruined my life,” he said flatly.

  I left Gentile frustrated but with a better understanding of his three-year involvement in the Gardner case and why the FBI was so convinced he could lead them to one or more of the masterpieces. Replaying the moment in my mind, I thought about why he hadn’t taken the bait. There was money—potentially millions of dollars—to be had if he could facilitate the return of the paintings. And while I hadn’t explicitly offered him a more immediate reward for his information, we both knew I was willing to try. So why not open up? Two reasons eventually occurred to me. He didn’t want to be humiliated, and he was afraid for himself and his family.

  If he did have possession of any of the stolen masterpieces but they had been destroyed in a hiding place he had made for them—in the ditch beneath the false-bottomed floor of his backyard shed—and he told the tale, he would face a lifetime of embarrassment for allowing the multimillion-dollar artwork to be ruined. Even with a $5 million reward on the table, this was no small thing to a man like Gentile. But perhaps more important, Gentile and his family would be vulnerable to whatever criminal gangs he may owe allegiance to.

  I knew his family was paramount in Gentile’s mind. During our talks, he constantly talked about his wife’s ill health, and he aimed his utmost anger at the federal officials who had refused to release him from prison to visit his daughter before she died in 2013.

  Before long it occurred to me that there was one person who might be able to get Gentile to open up: Vincent Ferrara, the former Boston mob leader I had been speaking to for several months through a shared acquaintance. I had reached out to Ferrara not long before I’d met with Gentile, in the hope of learning more about the battle for control of the Boston underworld after the death of Raymond Patriarca and the takedown of the Angiulo family in the mid-1980s. What I’d gotten, passed through our intermediary, was far more than I had expected: a detailed account of the underworld dealings between Ferrara’s gang and “Cadillac Frank” Salemme’s crew, as well as the confession made to Ferrara by Robert Donati, his driver and close friend, that Donati had pulled off the Gardner Museum theft.

  With or without Gentile, the pieces were starting to fit. Donati’s confession had a ring of truth, not only because of the enormous detail involved, but because it also, finally, included a motive for the Gardner heist: Donati intended to exchange whatever masterpieces were stolen for Ferrara’s release from prison, because Ferrara was the only person who could protect Donati in the then-raging war between the Ferrara and Salemme gangs.

  But Donati never got his wish. With the heat more intense than he’d ever imagined after stealing the paintings, Donati hid the art, perhaps in the hands of his friend Bobby Guarente, hoping that one day he could still gain his friend’s release. Instead he suffered a brutal death.

  Now, with the $5 million reward in front of Ferrara—something he wanted to share with Donati’s family—I could see a way that the return of the masterpieces might be brokered.

  Although Ferrara had been living a quiet, law-abiding life since release from prison in 2005, he might be willing to meet and talk with Gentile, and provide him assurance that no harm would come to him or his family if he gave the authorities what they were looking for, namely the location of the masterpieces, even if they were now ruined.

  I contacted the intermediary, who got back to me almost immediately. He was willing to put the request to Ferrara and ask him if he would meet with Gentile, but he envisioned a problem none of us could solve.

  As a recently released federal prisoner, Gentile had to abide by certain rules. One of them prevented him from meeting with anyone who had been convicted of a federal offense. Only a federal judge, acting on the request of the FBI or another US law enforcement agency, could release Gentile from that restriction. Despite what felt like the biggest break in the Gardner case yet, arranging a meeting between Ferrara and Gentile was not something I could accomplish. But it also felt like just the sort of meeting the authorities, especially those involved who have labored so tirelessly over the case, would want to see happen, if not encourage.

  But it was up to the feds to arrange such a meeting. I had taken the matter as far as I could or should as a reporter.

  Just like the Boston police, and many others who’d tried to help over the years, ultimately I had to cede jurisdiction to the FBI. Thus far, they had been unwilling to act on my information.

  I had to stop there.

  _______________________

  After twenty-five years, the biggest art theft in world history is still an open case. Despite the efforts of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, no one has been arrested and nothing has been recovered. In fact, there hasn’t even been a single confirmed sighting of any of the thirteen stolen pieces. It is a disgrace that wouldn’t be tolerated in European countries, where art is revered as a national treasure rather than collected by hedge fund managers and titans of industry.

  How could two men disguised as police officers, but wearing what were obviously fake mustaches and private security uniforms that could have been bought at any army supply store, have pulled off such an extraordinary score? How could they have run roughshod through the museum’s hallowed g
alleries, like hoodlums on an angry rampage, smashing glass facings from frames, cutting Rembrandts from their mountings, yet leave a Napoleonic banner unharmed after a long, futile effort to unscrew it from its encasement? And how could a museum, containing gallery after gallery of masterpieces and priceless antiques, allow itself to remain vulnerable to such a theft after being warned in no uncertain terms that members of one of Boston’s toughest gangs were plotting to rob it?

  Enter a vulnerable museum in dime-store disguises, take the first things that look expensive, and walk out the employee entrance. In the end it was a simple plan, and it didn’t take a master to execute it. All it took was a motive and a few friends in low places, just the kind of job that Bobby Donati was perfect for.

  But the crime remains unsolved, and the artwork missing. Perhaps if traditional investigative work could not provide the key to a recovery, maybe a nontraditional approach could be successful. Even if Richard DesLauriers’ 2013 press conference had left something to be desired in the way of convincing details of how the theft had taken place and where the paintings had been hidden, the FBI Boston chief said at least one thing I agreed with: What was needed in any renewed efforts to locate the missing masterpieces was, quite simply, more people looking.

  Although the FBI and the Gardner Museum had spent millions trying to locate the artwork via traditional investigative work, what had been missing from the approach was the public’s commitment to the effort. A “crowdsourcing” campaign could garner public awareness and commitment toward playing a role in recovering the art. There needed to be an effort to show the people of Boston, if not art lovers everywhere, that what was stolen in that March 1990 heist was as much our loss as it was the museum’s.

  Anne Hawley had issued eloquent statements about that loss on several occasions in the past, but they seemed to have been forgotten in just a few days’ time. Richard DesLauriers had made his plea for the public’s help in 2013, but in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, which took place a month after his Gardner press conference, it had been all but forgotten.

  It did bring in a number of leads—which were dutifully investigated without success—before the public seemingly moved on. But still others are out there who have been looking.

  One is a man named Howard Winter. Winter, a longtime Boston gangster in his eighties, and James Melvin, who turned seventy a few years ago, had a novel idea. Rather than try to take the glory for themselves, as William Youngworth and others seem to have tried, Winter and Melvin chose to seek information from their friends in the underworld about the stolen artwork, sharing the opportunity in the hope of achieving results.

  Winter and Melvin insisted that what they were not offering to do was to go undercover for the authorities—they were not about to flip on any former associates.

  Instead, they pledged to do their own detective work among their past associates—and new ones to whom they were directed—and make known this specific message: The paintings had been missing for far too long. Whatever the reason they had been stolen—to ransom someone out of jail, for a fire sale to an interested customer, for bartering a trade for illicit contraband like drugs, weapons, or stolen diamonds—it had long been satisfied. They needed to be back on the museum’s gallery walls now and the deal being offered—the $5 million reward by the museum and no prosecution for possession of stolen property—was more than adequate.

  The two worked diligently on the assignment for several years. Melvin flew to Canada, Florida, and California to meet with those he thought knew something or could help. Their work was interrupted, however, by another venture the pair got involved with: an attempt by both men to help a lawyer they knew avoid making high-interest payments on $100,000 he had borrowed from two businessmen. The statements Melvin and Winter made to the two businessmen were considered extortion threats. Both men were indicted, pleaded guilty to the charges, and were put on probation in 2013. Winter was eighty-three at the time, and Melvin seventy.

  But Melvin was diagnosed with a serious illness during this period, halting their efforts on behalf of the Gardner. In a recent interview, Winter said that Melvin’s death, which came in early 2014, had robbed him of both his friend and his hopes his partner could help recover the stolen paintings. “Jimmy knew everyone, and there was no door that didn’t open for him,” Winter said. “I thought we were making progress, good progress, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be.”

  Even if Winter’s story does not have a happy ending, he is one more example of a shift in will for gaining the paintings’ recovery. Because of the FBI’s insistence that it is not interested in prosecuting those who might have possession of the artwork, the bad guys have joined the recovery effort. The agency has been successful in drawing out people like Howie Winter, Robert Gentile, Louis Royce, and others who believe the masterpieces belong back on the museum’s walls for all of the public’s enjoyment.

  For now, though, Boston—and the rest of the art-loving world—is entering a second quarter-century without the Gardner masterpieces. The magic and the wonder that had captured the imagination of Louis Royce so keenly that he wanted to find a way to steal them has now turned—he like so many other notorious bad guys believes the paintings need to be returned to those galleries’ walls.

  A reminder of what their loss means to the city came to me recently as I stood on the steps of the Boston Public Library, which is located in the city center, Copley Square. The city’s vibrancy can be felt here—as young and old rush in and out of the library—as can the city’s history, with the square dating back to the Revolution and also the site of the two terrible terrorist bomb blasts that killed three people and injured hundreds at the 2013 Boston Marathon.

  Isabella and John Gardner moved into the nearby Back Bay neighborhood soon after their marriage in 1860. It was there that they grew to be known as perhaps the city’s most brilliant couple, entertaining the highest achievers in the arts and business. But their residence, and the two adjoining apartments they bought as well, proved to be too small to accommodate the artistic masterpieces the couple began purchasing on their frequent trips to Europe and the Orient.

  Together they decided they would build a museum on a plot of land farther west of Copley Square, in the Fens neighborhood, and Mrs. Gardner moved quickly to realize that goal after her husband’s sudden death from a stroke in 1898.

  Hoping the museum would encourage a particularly American style of art as well as heighten the appreciation of the arts among all Bostonians, the building was the largest privately owned museum in the country when it opened to the public in 1903, until the Barnes Museum opened in Philadelphia in the 1920s and later the Getty in Los Angeles in the 1970s.

  But the Gardner collection remains one of the nation’s greatest treasures. Back in Copley Square, at the entrance of the Boston Public Library, two large statues welcome visitors to the library’s original entrance. One is dedicated to scientific endeavor, the other to the arts.

  On the pedestal that holds the elegant female form that majestically represents artistic achievement through the ages, eight names are inscribed: Phidias, Praxiteles, Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, Titian, Velasquez, and . . . Rembrandt. The works of six of those masters are on public display at the Gardner Museum, and it is one of the few places in the world where so many of such masterpieces are so accessible. Yet today the Gardner is perhaps even better known for the thirteen pieces that are missing, including three Rembrants.

  My hope is that this this book will hasten their return.

  Acknowledgments

  Ernest Hemingway’s quote that working for a newspaper can help you be a better writer—“as long as you quit in time”—stuck in my mind over the past year as I researched and wrote Master Thieves. How was I going to make this book on the historic theft from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum more than the sum of my coverage for the Boston Globe if I had spent my entire career as a newspaperman?


  If I have succeeded, recognition needs to be shared with the following people: Jack Driscoll, Matthew Storin, Martin Baron, and Brian McGrory, the Globe editors since the theft, who have afforded my interest in the case. Project editors Ben Bradlee Jr. and Mark Morrow have edited my longer pieces into the Globe. Colleagues with whom I have worked on individual articles since I began covering the story in 1997 include Ric Kahn, Judy Rakowsky, Sean Murphy, Joe Williams, Dan Golden, Larry Tye, Shelley Murphy, Patricia Nea­lon, Milton Valencia, and Scott Allen. Globe colleagues and friends with whom I have thought through how best to report and tell the story included Gerard M. O’Neill, Tom Farragher, Linda Matchan, Walter V. Robinson, Kevin Cullen, Jenna Russell, Matt Brelis, Charles Mansbach, Marcella Bombardieri, and Charles Kenney.

  For me, none of it works unless the facts have been thoroughly researched and properly linked. Globe librarian Lisa Tuite and her able staff of deputies helped me connect the dots no matter how dim or distant they seemed to be. Special thanks to Marc Shechtman for assembling the discouragingly long list of art thefts in Massachusetts in recent years. The book Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business by Jeff Howe, an assistant professor at Northeastern University’s Journalism Department, provided valuable insight as to how digital media could make the public collectively more aware of the loss of these masterpieces and effect a recovery.

  Lynn Johnston, my literary agent, proved extraordinary both in marketing the proposal as well as helping to assemble the chapters into a narrative. Jeff Slate served an invaluable role assisting in turning a compelling collection of facts into a continuous story line. Benjamin Adams, my editor at PublicAffairs, had the original idea that if the secret to the theft lay within the Boston mob then we’d have a terrific book. I can attest that beyond being a good amateur detective he’s also a worthy editor. Thanks to Globe colleague Alex Beam for putting us together.