Post by Ace on Jun 19, 2003 14:44:26 GMT -5
Staten Island Advance
Islanders indicted in scam
Prison correctional officers charged with taking original artwork by Salvador Dali during staged fire drill
www.silive.com/news/advance/index.ssf?/base/news/1055943998135860.xml
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
By SETH SOLOMONOW
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE
The great art theft at Rikers Island might have been yet another remake of movieland's "The Thomas Crown Affair," except for a couple of things.
It didn't feature Pierce Brosnan or Steve McQueen and it didn't work nearly as well.
The loot at Rikers was an original drawing by Salvador Dali, worth perhaps a cool quarter-million bucks. The fake that replaced it was a poor imitation. Very poor.
The thieves, prosecutors say, were four guys who should have known better -- correction personnel who worked at the city lockup.
And two of the four entering pleas yesterday in Bronx Supreme Court are Staten Islanders.
Correction Officers Timothy Pina, 44, and Greg Sokol, 38, both of Staten Island, pleaded not guilty to second-degree grand larceny charges. So did Assistant Deputy Wardens Benny Nuzzo, 49, of Brooklyn, and Mitchell Hochhauser, 40, of Queens.
The four, who surrendered to authorities yesterday, face up to 15 years on the opposite side of the bars they once guarded. They have been suspended without pay.
Assistant District Attorney Wanda Perez-Maldonado said that Sokol was cooperating with prosecutors and provided them with secret tape recordings he made of the other defendants discussing a plan to steal the drawing.
Sokol appeared before Supreme Court Judge John Byrnes separately from the other three defendants, who appeared together.
Nuzzo's attorney, Chad Seigel, said his brief review of the tape transcripts "doesn't make out the allegations that [the prosecution] claims it does."
Nuzzo and Hochhauser were to be released pending $25,000 bail each, while Sokol and Pina were to be released after posting $10,000 bail each.
Prosecutors said the defendants staged a phony fire drill on March 1 as a cover for the theft, which Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson called "the result of shameless arrogance, fueled by greed."
"It represents, not only a serious betrayal of the public trust," Johnson said in a statement, "but also undermines the professionalism of the vast majority of Correction Department employees."
In 1965, Dali sketched the ink-and-pencil drawing of Jesus on the cross as a gift to then-Correction Chief Anna Moscowitz Kross, after illness prevented the surrealist artist from visiting the jail.
The untitled drawing hung in the facility's cafeteria for 16 years before it was moved to the public waiting area.
Dali's work, which hasn't been recovered, is valued as high as $250,000.
Ms. Perez-Maldonado, who is prosecuting the case, said that Nuzzo and Hochhauser orchestrated the plan to steal and sell the drawing, and then split the proceeds after giving Pina $50,000.
She said Nuzzo and Hochhauser, who were the top-ranking officials on duty the night of the theft, called an unscheduled fire drill while Pina and Sokol removed the 59-by-39- 1/2-inch drawing on a carved mahogany frame and replaced it with a copy, possibly drawn by Nuzzo.
The substitute was soon discovered by other correction officers. According to published reports, police felt all along it was an inside job, not professional art smugglers: For one, the new copy was stapled to the case. And two, the new frame was cheap, not anything like the gilt-wood frame that protected the original pen-and-ink rendering.
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Stapled? ;D ;D ;D
That's sooo sad. Some people are just better off behind bars.
Ace
Islanders indicted in scam
Prison correctional officers charged with taking original artwork by Salvador Dali during staged fire drill
www.silive.com/news/advance/index.ssf?/base/news/1055943998135860.xml
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
By SETH SOLOMONOW
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE
The great art theft at Rikers Island might have been yet another remake of movieland's "The Thomas Crown Affair," except for a couple of things.
It didn't feature Pierce Brosnan or Steve McQueen and it didn't work nearly as well.
The loot at Rikers was an original drawing by Salvador Dali, worth perhaps a cool quarter-million bucks. The fake that replaced it was a poor imitation. Very poor.
The thieves, prosecutors say, were four guys who should have known better -- correction personnel who worked at the city lockup.
And two of the four entering pleas yesterday in Bronx Supreme Court are Staten Islanders.
Correction Officers Timothy Pina, 44, and Greg Sokol, 38, both of Staten Island, pleaded not guilty to second-degree grand larceny charges. So did Assistant Deputy Wardens Benny Nuzzo, 49, of Brooklyn, and Mitchell Hochhauser, 40, of Queens.
The four, who surrendered to authorities yesterday, face up to 15 years on the opposite side of the bars they once guarded. They have been suspended without pay.
Assistant District Attorney Wanda Perez-Maldonado said that Sokol was cooperating with prosecutors and provided them with secret tape recordings he made of the other defendants discussing a plan to steal the drawing.
Sokol appeared before Supreme Court Judge John Byrnes separately from the other three defendants, who appeared together.
Nuzzo's attorney, Chad Seigel, said his brief review of the tape transcripts "doesn't make out the allegations that [the prosecution] claims it does."
Nuzzo and Hochhauser were to be released pending $25,000 bail each, while Sokol and Pina were to be released after posting $10,000 bail each.
Prosecutors said the defendants staged a phony fire drill on March 1 as a cover for the theft, which Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson called "the result of shameless arrogance, fueled by greed."
"It represents, not only a serious betrayal of the public trust," Johnson said in a statement, "but also undermines the professionalism of the vast majority of Correction Department employees."
In 1965, Dali sketched the ink-and-pencil drawing of Jesus on the cross as a gift to then-Correction Chief Anna Moscowitz Kross, after illness prevented the surrealist artist from visiting the jail.
The untitled drawing hung in the facility's cafeteria for 16 years before it was moved to the public waiting area.
Dali's work, which hasn't been recovered, is valued as high as $250,000.
Ms. Perez-Maldonado, who is prosecuting the case, said that Nuzzo and Hochhauser orchestrated the plan to steal and sell the drawing, and then split the proceeds after giving Pina $50,000.
She said Nuzzo and Hochhauser, who were the top-ranking officials on duty the night of the theft, called an unscheduled fire drill while Pina and Sokol removed the 59-by-39- 1/2-inch drawing on a carved mahogany frame and replaced it with a copy, possibly drawn by Nuzzo.
The substitute was soon discovered by other correction officers. According to published reports, police felt all along it was an inside job, not professional art smugglers: For one, the new copy was stapled to the case. And two, the new frame was cheap, not anything like the gilt-wood frame that protected the original pen-and-ink rendering.
=====================================
Stapled? ;D ;D ;D
That's sooo sad. Some people are just better off behind bars.
Ace
