A member of a theft ring that stole quite a few objects—together with works by Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock—from museums over a 20-year span was sentenced to eight years in jail on Thursday (13 March).
Thomas Trotta is the fourth particular person sentenced out of 9 whole who’ve been charged in relation to the heists. He beforehand pleaded responsible to at least one rely of theft of main art work. Trotta was “the primary burglar, he was the one which went into the establishments and burglarised them”, Trotta’s lawyer instructed the Related Press reporter Mark Scolforo. He additionally stated that Trotta was the primary authorities witness towards three of his co-conspirators. Along with jail time, Trotta was ordered to pay over $2.7m in restitution.
The thefts in query occurred between 1999 and 2019 at museums throughout the nation, largely in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. Trotta has confessed to stealing numerous objects together with a Tiffany lamp, sports activities awards (championship rings and belts, plaques and trophies), vintage firearms, a mining museum’s gold nuggets and works by Warhol, Pollock and Jasper Francis Cropsey.
The thieves melted down lots of the metallic objects earlier than promoting them for a lot lower than their unique worth as memorabilia. In addition they burned the Cropsey portray, Higher Hudson (1871), in an try and thwart detection by the authorities. Whereas among the firearms have since been recovered, the Warhol and Pollock works stay at giant.
The thieves stole Warhol’s silkscreen La Grande Ardour (1984) and Pollock’s portray Springs Winter (1949) from the Everhart Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 2005. The Pollock alone is estimated to be price $12m. The works have been lengthy feared to have been destroyed, however in 2023 new data got here to gentle that led authorities to imagine they could be safely stowed away. Trotter’s lawyer instructed the Related Press that his consumer thought he knew the place the items have been in Newark, New Jersey: “He thought he did, however when the authorities went to the place he thought it was, they couldn’t discover them.”
Federal prices have been introduced towards all 9 alleged burglars two years in the past. The final of them surrendered in January 2024 after virtually seven months on the run.
