Stephen Kurkjian - Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the World’s Greatest Art Heist

Master Thieves

The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the Worlds Greatest Art Heist

Stephen Kurkjian

Copyright 2015 by Stephen Kurkjian.

Published in the United States by PublicAffairs, a Member of the Perseus Books Group

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On several occasions in this book, I have reconstructed conversations based on the recollections of only one of the people involved.

Book design by Pauline Brown

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kurkjian, Stephen A.

Master thieves : the Boston gangsters who pulled off the worlds greatest art heist / Stephen Kurkjian.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-61039-424-6 (e-book) 1. Art theftsMassachusettsBoston. 2. Theft from museumsMassachusettsBoston. 3. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. I. Title.

N8795.3.U6K87 2015

364.16287599492dc23

2014046852

First Edition

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is dedicated to my late parents Anoosh and Rosella Kurkjian, and my aunt Isabelle Gureghian Totovian, who taught me about lifes greatest giftsbaseball, good writing, and children

Contents

Richard Abath. The night watchman who made the grievous errors of allowing the two men dressed as police officers into the museum and then stepping away from the museums only panic alarm on a ruse by the two thieves.

Anthony Amore. Security director for the museum since 2005 who has worked diligently with the FBI and US attorneys office on the Gardner investigation.

Earle Berghman. Close friend in Maine of the late mobster Robert Guarente, who believed that Guarente had possession of some of the stolen Gardner paintings. After Guarentes death he introduced Guarentes daughter to a Boston lawyer in the hope of working out a deal to facilitate the recovery of the artwork.

James Whitey Bulger. Notorious Boston mobster whose associates contend sought out who was responsible for the Gardner theft to extract tribute from them for having pulled off such a theft on his turf.

Myles Connor Jr. Legendary Boston art thief who contends that he cased the Gardner for a heist with Robert Donati after the pair pulled off the theft of paintings by Andrew Wyeth and his father, N. C. Wyeth, from the Woolworth Estate in Monmouth, Maine, in May 1974.

Richard DesLauriers. Head of the FBIs Boston office from 2010 to 2013, who announced on the thefts twenty-third anniversary that his agents had determined who was responsible for the theft but said the publics help was still needed to gain the artworks recovery.

Richard Devlin. Soldier in the Rossetti gang of East Boston who became an enforcer for Frank Salemme. Killed in a 1994 shootout with members of the rival gang fighting for control of the Boston underworld. Louis Royce, who had cased the Gardner Museum for robbery, says he told Devlin of the museums poor security and together they operated a cherrypicker to check the museums windows one night in 1982, only to find they were locked.

Robert Donati. Confidante of and driver for Boston mob leader Vincent Ferrara who reportedly told Ferrara that he had pulled off the Gardner robbery to try to gain Ferraras release from prison. Donati was brutally beaten to death in September 1991, possibly a victim of the Boston gang war raging at the time.

John Durham. Assistant US attorney who spearheaded the prosecution on minor drug charges against Robert Gentile, the low-level criminal believed to be tied to hiding one or more of the stolen paintings at his home in Manchester, Connecticut.

Vincent Vinnie Ferrara. Co-leader of the renegade Boston mob group that fought Frank Salemme for control of the regions underworld in the 1980s and 90s. Ferrara was released from prison in 2005 after serving sixteen years for racketeering when a federal judge found that prosecutors had withheld evidence clearing Ferrara from involvement in the murder of an underling.

Robert Gentile. Low-level crime associate from Manchester, Connecticut, who was convicted of selling prescription drugs to an undercover federal informant, a case he and his lawyer contend was pursued against him to force cooperation on his knowledge of the Gardner theft. Most incriminating evidence found in a sweep of his house, backyard, and false-bottomed shed was a list showing what the artwork would bring on the black market. Gentile acknowledges that he worked as a cook and security guard for Robert Guarente and Robert Luisi while they were running a cocaine trafficking ring in late 1990s in Boston, and on several occasions drove Luisi to Philadelphia, where Luisi met with mob leaders.

Lyle Grindle. Security director of the Gardner Museum at the time of the theft. Knew that the museum lacked several key security components, including a secured control room and a more sophisticated alarm system, but was unable to convince the museums trustees to raise the funds needed for immediate improvements.

Bernard Grossberg. Boston lawyer who signed a deal with Robert Guarentes daughter and best friend to share reward money if they could prove they could gain recovery of one or more of the paintings. Paint chips given to him by the daughter and friend turned out to be phony.

Elene Guarente. Former wife of the mobster Robert Guarente who told the FBI and Anthony Amore in 2010 that her late husband had given one or more of the stolen paintings to Robert Gentile, his longtime friend from Connecticut.

Robert Bobby Guarente. The key swingman in the FBIs account of what happened to the stolen paintings after their theft, and a loyalist to Frank Salemme and his underworld gang. The FBI believes Guarente had given some of the artwork, stolen by associates of the Rossetti gang of East Boston or others associated with Carmello Merlino of Dorchester, to Robert Gentile.

Anne Hawley. Appointed director of the museum in 1989, she had been on the job for just six months when the theft occurred. Has spurred FBI investigators, public officials, corporate leaders, even the Vatican to help in recovery efforts. Led the drive to raise more than $100 million to build a new wing, which opened in 2012 adjacent to the museum.

Arnold Hiatt. Now-emeritus trustee of the Gardner Museum, was instrumental in having Hawley named as director and has worked hard to maintain the search for the stolen artwork as a priority among investigators.

David Houghton. Small-time hood from Malden, Massachusetts, who allegedly visited Myles Connor in prison in California to say that he and Robert Donati had pulled off the Gardner robbery. Houghtons size, more than three hundred pounds, was far larger than the description of the two thieves, however.

Geoffrey Kelly. FBI agent in charge of the investigation. Quoted in 2010 as saying there had never been a concrete sighting of any of the stolen artwork, but told a Fox TV reporter without providing any details in 2014 that there had been a confirmed sighting of one of the paintings.