Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - The Man Behind The Worlds Largest Art Theft | Gardner Museum Heist

Episode Date: November 10, 2022

Stephen Kurkjian covers what happened the night the Gardner Museum Was Robbed. In the early morning hours of March 18, 1990, thirteen works of art were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

said to them if anybody comes to the side door no matter who it is police fire no matter who it is you call the police and you summon the police to the door don't let anybody in and they said to him step away from the desk come out here from behind that desk and let's get a good look at you now rick uh has a has a decision to make because rick in front of him has the only alarm it's an emergency alarm that is inside the museum that he can press that can tell the outside world there's an emergency going on at the museum summon police now hey this is matt cox and i am i am with um stephen kirkjian and he is a retired reporter with the boston globe pretty sure that's right Boston Globe, correct?

Exactly. Yes, wrote a great book on the Gardner Museum Heist, and he's here to explain the whole thing to me. It's going to be great. So Matt is doing these podcasts, and as I understand, he has concentrated in the criminal world. This, too, is a case out of the criminal world. but it's something different. It's not money, it's not jewelry, it's art of the agents. And it stems from a theft that took place March 18th, 1990.

That is now 32 years ago. And it has remained a case that I've focused on. I began focusing on the mid-90s when I read. returned to the globe from my prior assignment, which was in Washington. But I had been an investigative reporter all my life and had, in fact, had been a founding member of the Global Spotlight team, which if you haven't seen the movie Spotlight, you get a sense of what it does. And that team started in the early 70s and broke some of the biggest stories in Boston, including the Criminal Alliance at Whitey Bulger, who is the most notorious criminal

criminal in Boston history, in the secret alliance he had with the FBI. That was a story that was broken by the Globe Spotlight Team in the late 80s. And, you know, I wasn't a member of the team then, but in, when I came back from Washington, I joined the team up. I joined the team in 2002. And right after it had broken, what I consider the greatest, most important journalism story, at least in Boston history, and that is the clergy abuse was known as clergy abuse scandal that the Boston Archdiocese was covering.

up, tolerating, probably encouraging abuse of children by priests within the archdiocese, knowing about it, tolerating it, and covering up on it. That story, too, was broken by the Globe Spotlight Team in 2002. So I thought, you know, since the Globe Spotlight Team stands for something beyond breaking headlines, but something that's important about Boston, I would do a book on the Gardner Museum because I consider it to have an important element to it about Boston. The museum was opened in 1903 by Isabella Stewart Gardner, and in it, she had a collection of artwork of the ages. At the time it opened in 1903, it was considered the largest private

collection of art in America. And she had collected that art with her husband, who was one of Boston's most well-to-do entrepreneurs from 1860 to 1880 when he passed away and she decided that she would put the art in the museum because what she had found in her travels with her husband, that art was defined a civilization. And while the United States, America was becoming a world power in the late 18th, it lacked what she saw was made these civilizations that lasted forever going back to the dynasties of China and that was the art. And she wanted to encourage an appreciation and inspire a experimentation in art here in America. So she built this museum, one of the nicest sections of Boston, close to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

And four stories of building, and the fourth floor was an administrative officer. But the other three floors were filled with galleries. And as I say, it was the richest collection of private collection of art in America. And when it opened in 1903, she had two mandates. One is that people could go there for free. That had to change over the years. It's now a tidy sum, but it is still free of charge for students. And the second was that Boston school students,

You know, the little ragamuffins, the eighth graders, should each class would go through the museum and look at the museum and see the art and get up close to the art. And what she wanted to do was inspire Bostonians, if not Americans, to appreciate an experiment with art. And it worked. I know that personally it worked because my father, he was a commercial artist, came to America as a refugee. from a survivor of the Armenian Genocide. And when he got into art school, he would go over to the museum every day after school and study the masters of the ages, Rembrandt, Vermeer. But when Mrs. Gardner died in mid-20s, her will had one provision in it that I think sowed

deceit for the theft that was to come. And that was that nothing could change in the galleries. The museum had to stay as it was at the time of her death. And so the museum became sort of a timepiece. And the trustees who took over running it didn't have really a purpose except to open the doors. They didn't have a purpose to raise money because they didn't have to raise money because all the collection was complete. But in not collecting money and not in not going to the endowment and raising money from their well-to-do sponsors, the museum itself began to fray.

It was paying their guards just about minimum wage, which was more than $4 to $4 an hour. And the museum began to fray. So by the mid-80s, the collection, there was no central air conditioning. And the security director, whom they hired, the first security director they hired in the early 80s, told me that he would come in in the mornings and the paintings themselves, the canvases were filled with moisture. Now, that was hurting the paintings. So he went to the trustees and he said, you have to put in a central air conditioning. They did half a million dollars. He went back to them the next year and said, you've got to put in a fire alarm system.

They said, we don't have money. You know, we spent all our money last year on a central air. Well, he raised $50,000 to get a fire alarm system in. But they didn't get around to improving the quality or the professional. of the guards. They continued to be retirees or kids who came in and were working at barely over the minimum wage. And that was certainly true with the two men who were on duty that night of March 18th, 1990. One of the two men had never worked a shift, maybe had worked to shift once before. He was called in that night because the regular fellow, the old time,

who had worked a shift, had called in sick. So the second man who was on duty as ever, he was Rick, he too had never had much experience in protecting art and insecurity. He had a love of rock and roll. And he and a group of friends he roamed with in Brighton, Alston Brighton area of Boston, they had started a band. And they were doing okay. They were having a few ragers at their basement of their house. And they would invite in the college kids who lived in the neighborhood. And they had raised enough for the rent. Or they would play

at a couple of the CD bars in the neighborhood. And they were doing okay. And he loved the work as a, at the museum, as he told me, because it allowed him to continue what he really wanted to do, which was start a rock and roll band, and quit at, quit doing that work at midnight and rush over to the museum and take, take on his job of the night, which was his night security job. And the museum was closed. He said it was a perfect job for him. He often was stoned or drunk, he told me, when he showed up at night. But it didn't. that didn't matter because he was, nothing ever happened. No one ever came in. No one never knocked at the door. They, you know, they did the rounds. They, and there wasn't a little bit

of security equipment at the museum. But there was only, you know, one alarm bell to the outside world if something was going on, but he had never used it because nothing had ever happened. Well, Something happened on the night of March 18th, 1990. You have to know, look up in your calendar if you're not in Boston. You don't have to tell a Bostonian what March 17th is. It's St. Patrick's Day. And that is a holy holiday in Boston. The schools are closed.

There's a big parade in South Boston. And every cop, whether Boston police or state police, is on duty that day because they're making sure the kids are not getting too drunk. and they're paying attention to the parade that's marching up and down Broadway Street in South Boston. Well, I think the thieves who planned this theft had this night in, this was around 1 o'clock in the morning. There were two men dressed in police uniforms in what is thought to have been a, a small, smaller car, you know, with a rear window that opened up. And the car that was seen on that street at 1 a.m. 12.30, 1 a.m. who had seen it as a couple

of kids who had left the party late, and they were walking on Palace Road, which is the side door, the side street, the museum's sides on. And they saw these two guys dressed in in police uniforms, including their hats, and they were sitting in a car about 100 feet away from the side door of the museum. Well, the kids were drunk, so they didn't try to get any, to inquire about why two cops would be in a plane-closed car,

not a, you know, not a Crown Vic as the detectives were in, and not a cruiser. So they walked away, and at 1 o'clock, 1.10 in the morning, the car inched up closer to the side door of the museum. And the two men get out, still dressed in their uniforms, and they rang the side doorbell of the museum. The bell at the side door of the museum. It was the employee's entrance. And again, Rick, the rock and roller, who had worked there for about a year at the time. He had a closed circuit TV at the desk that he could see the two men in police uniforms.

And he asked, hello, what is it? What can I do for you? And one of them said, we're here to investigate a disturbance. And they said, and he said to them, there's nothing going on. Everything is fine here. And they said, let us in. We're here to investigate a disturbance. Now, Rick, in his mind, his mind is working fast now.

I interviewed him many times on this. And he said, all he could think of is that some kids had jumped over a back fence that opened up into the museum's nursery where the shrubs and plants of the museum were stored. That some kids had jumped over that back fence and someone had seen them and called the police. He had no idea they weren't what they said they were, which were men in police uniforms. So he buzzed them in. He had to buzz them in through two doors.

And they came in to his security room, which is right out there in the open, which is another failing of the museum, that they had an open security desk. And they presented themselves to him, and they said, is there anybody else here? And he said, yes, there's one other security guard.

doing the rounds, called him down. And he calls him down. And then they look at him and they say to him, and Rickett is telling me, he wondered about them because they kept on, they had both had mustaches. They kept on tressing their moustaches. He now thinks that they were fake mustaches. But he still did not believe that they were anything but what they were said, which were police officers. And then they said to him, he made two grievous service this night. One is to let them in. Because he was told his handbook said to them, if anybody comes to the side door, no matter who it is. Police, fire, no matter who it is, you call

the police and you summon the police to the door. Don't let anybody in. Well, he had now let them in. And here they were in front of him saying, and they say to him, Rick, you look familiar. Do we have a warrant out for you? And Rick knew he had never been in any scrapes in Boston, so there would be no warrants on him. But he was somewhat suspicious that they were looking at him suspiciously. And he says, no, no, I'm clean. I've got nothing against.

No warrants on me. And they said to him, step away from the desk. Come out here from behind that desk and let's get a good look at you. now Rick has a decision to make because Rick in front of him has the only alarm it's an emergency alarm that is inside the museum that he can press that can tell the outside world it's a private detective agency that the museum had at its ready that he could appear press that button it would told that private detective company there's an emergency going on at the museum summon police now But he didn't. Why? I said to him, Rick, why did you step away? Why did you do follow what they were saying? Why did you follow and tell them to go outside where they were on the outside of the security desk?

Why did you remove yourself from hitting that alarm? And he said, well, I'll tell you the truth. And he points to his pocket. I had a ticket that night to the Grateful Dead concert in Hartford, Connecticut. This is Sunday night, March 18th, 1990. You can look it up. There were reviews on the music. Grateful Dead was playing March 18th and March 19.

And Rick had 1990, Sunday night and Monday night in Hartford. And Rick had tickets to the Sunday night conference. And Rick knew enough about the law that he knew. He said, I knew if these guys didn't believe me, if they kept believing with their mistaken, mistaken belief that I was wanted for something, they were going to lock me up. And I would not have gotten out of jail until Monday morning, and I would have missed the Sunday night concert I had a ticket to. So I said, okay. And they said, at this point, I still believe that

they were thieves. They were, excuse me, police. So I stepped away. And the minute he stepped away, the second guard came into the room about the minute he stepped away they pushed him up against the wall put handcuffs on him without frisking him he said the first time he knew they weren't cops is when they didn't frisk him

they put handcuffs on him the second guard came into the room they did the same thing to him and they brought them downstairs the museum has a basement and they put them in two separate places inside the museum that basement and this

is around 120, and they spend all about 81 minutes inside. They have an hour. They spend another hour inside the museum doing whatever they want to do. Most art thefts are grab and run. Bad guys go in, grab whatever's on the closest that they want to take, and run out before the alarm stop. But these guys had a whole hour, and they could have done whatever they could have stayed in there for five hours. The next shift was not going to change until 6.30 in the morning. But they only spent another hour inside the museum. But they reeked havoc. They stole 13 pieces in all, including two large Rembrandts, a smaller Rembrandt, in one Vermeer, a Degas, and a Monet, excuse me, Amani, that was

stolen from a room that was, that no one can figure out how they got into that room. But there are 13 pieces in all. And the total value, if you could buy these on the open market now, is more than a billion dollars in art was stolen that night. And the artwork, as I say, is of the ages. that it's not known of beyond Boston. It's not, is held, is, you know, is not thought of as a major crime outside of Boston is a, is a sin.

It's because this is artwork of the ages, Rembrandt's and Vermeer's. The only time Rembrandt painted the sea, the ocean. That's in a painting that's called Christ in a storm of the sea of Galilee. It shows Christ in a, you know, you can look it up or you can, it's shown in my book here. You can look it up and it's a stunning painting. Rembrandt didn't need to paint the sea again because it's so gripping of a painting. So 32 years later, the beauty of the art, you know, the beauty of the art is remarkable. The mystery behind this theft is even more remarkable.

In 32 years, not a person has been arrested, either a planner, a holder, a robber. No one has been arrested. Not a single piece has been recovered. All 13 pieces. Some of the smaller pieces. There were four or five Degas sketches that were taken. There was a finial, which is the top of the flagpole, that was taken. There is a little, called a vase, a beaker that was taken.

Some of the art that was taken, it's, again, This museum contained artwork of the ages. It contained what is thought of as the most important piece of art in America on the third floor. They didn't even go up to the third floor. The bad guy stayed within the first and second floors of the museum. And we even know where they were inside the museum. One piece of equipment, security equipment, that the museum had put in place, a few months before the theft was a motion detector piece of equipment and it monitored through

monitors that are placed in the the entries of each gallery it monitored where the bad guys were inside the museum so you see and that transcript it was able to be they tried to steal the the transcript that was printed out at the security desk, the bad guys, as they left 81 minutes after the theft, they ripped off the transcript as they ripped off a videotape of them going through the museum. They ripped that off, but the transcript, that piece of equipment, had a computer chip in it. So the FBI, which took over the case, was able to replay. where they were and it shows the bad guy spent most of it all of their time inside the museum in the two rooms and the second floor the the dutch room was where they stole the larger the more important pieces and what is called the short gallery which is just a room away and they stole the five-day got prints but they also spent a lot of time in that room trying to get a, trying to get a Napoleonic banner, which hung in a frame above the ground.

They hoisted themselves on a little chest of drawers. And they tried to get the banner out, off, open the frame to get the banner. They couldn't when they came down. but they took, the banner was held by a flagpole and they took the top of that flagpole, which is called the finial, let's say a golden eagle. You see them on some flagpoles, but they took that. When they got off of that chest of drawers,

they came face to face with a Degas, with a frame that had five Degas prints. They busted the frame and they took the prints. Why did they do that? it's not the most important thing about those they got prints is that they were taken nothing else

there are finished products of those prints but they showed horse racing scenes and I'm thinking that's it appealed to them so the FBI took over the case in Boston

and they have worked the case diligently and for the last 10, 15 years the FBI has put out this advisory that whoever, if you have access to the paintings, bring them in.

If you have access to any of the artwork, bring them in. No questions asked. You won't be asked, you won't be asked to how you got them. You won't be asked any questions. And we'll drive you over to the museum and there's a $10 million reward waiting. $10 million award and no questions asked, yet still, the FBI says they still haven't had,

except for a piece of information that I and a couple of other people provided to them about a year ago that they felt was interesting. The FBI says they haven't had what they would call a proof of life sighting of any of the 13 pieces that were stolen. So I've thought about this. I've thought about two things that I've spent time as an investigative reporter. First, who would do it? Who would break into a museum using such wiles, yet in stealing it caused such havoc? Which that's, I don't underuse that word, havoc.

the the the the the every frame was broken the glass that was on the front of the frames that was broken the two rembrandts the two large six foot high rembrandts including the storm of the sea galilee they were cut out of their stretchers cut you could see the shreds left on the sides of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, the, of the, uh, excuse me, of the, of the, of the, if this, this, there comes to mind, well, who would order this? You know, there's always a thought of a Mr. Big. You know, if you've seen, um, the Thomas Crown Affair, too, uh, uh, Pierce Brasden, steals, a painting that he cannot live without. Well, is, was there some Mr. Big art thief? who could not live without these paintings, that's a possibility.

Is there a criminal who has money and through the drug world or the gun, you know, gun, you know, weapons industry cannot live without this rembrandt and would have ordered up a crime like this, a theft like this, it's possible. But you would not have allowed them to treat the artwork the way they did, which such like I said, happen. So as I did my reporting, I came upon as, and I, you know,

talked to some people who had been involved with art thefts before here in Boston. And I came upon one guy named Miles Connor. A local, he too was a rockerola. And he too knew about the garden museum. In fact, he said before he was locked up,

in the late 80s, he had cased the museum with another guy and he and this other guy had planned other museum thefts. And this other guy, as it turned out, was a member

of the Boston underworld. He was a pretty high up in one of the two gangs in the late 80s that were fighting for control of the Boston Underworld. world. And this is how the Gardner theft story

meles into the Boston crime story. Because as he told me, Connor told me, the only unless you're going to, unless you have a offense

who can offense the art that you've stolen available to you, the only reason to steal art like this is to get someone out of jail. Because the FBI, the landed gentry, civilized society, will be so shocked by a theft of this nature, of this size, dimension, that the FBI will try to do a deal with you, will reach out to you and

engage you and do a deal with you and say, what do you want, we want to, what do we have to do to get your artwork back. And lo and behold, there was a guy who had been locked up in Boston by the FBI, by the Feds, in late 89, named Vincent Ferrar. And Vincent Ferrar was a member of an organized crime gang looking to take care, take control of Boston's crime world in the late 80s. and his driver and one of his closer friends was a guy named Bobby Donati, Donati, DON-A-T-I,

and Bobby Donati was this fellow who hung around with Miles Connor and had gotten interested in art theft. And Miles sold him on the belief that if you are able to get your hands on treasured art, the FBI will do business with you. And that's what I came to me. learn. I talked to someone who was very close to Ferraro who was locked up in jail in the late late 89. And Ferrarra, this person gave me a long interview, week long interview. And he said

to me that that Donati had gone to Ferra on several occasions when Ferrar was in jail and said to him that he was going to pull off this theft and get this artwork and try to engage. the FBI to let Ferrarra out of jail. Ferraris, the intermediary, on behalf of Ferraro, whom I interviewed, said, Ferraris said, don't get to be involved. I don't want to have anything to do with you in getting involved with this theft. But it's the belief, in fact, the person who knows this case better than anyone, even better than the FBI, is the head of security for the museum, Anthony Amori.

And Amori wrote a letter to another prisoner whom I was in contact with about three or four years ago. And Amori says in the letter that without a doubt, he believes that Bobby Donati was responsible for the theft. And Bobby Donati had possession of the artwork after the theft. Did Bobby Donati reach out to the FBI? I don't know that. What happened to Bobby Donati is I think Bobby Donati tried to. when he wasn't able to because Ferrara didn't want it to be bartered for his release

I think what happened was Donati went to the underworld to try to fence the material and that's not a good that's not a good that was not a good choice for him he was killed brutally killed in mid-91 about a year and a half about a year after this year and a half after the theft and whom did he reach out to during that

18 months i don't know i do know one person he did and that was a fellow whom i interviewed last year he was a jeweler who worked in boston in the boston and he knew denardy and he gave me a long interview and i presented him with a couple of other guys i presented him to the fbi and Anthony Amory, the head of security of the museum. And I said to him, this guy sat down with Donati. Donati came and talked to him, and he brought in one of the pieces that had been stolen out of the museum. It was the finial. It was the top of the flagpole. And why did

not, Danati bring it in to this guy, this jeweler? And he to see if he could fence it. And the jewelist on the record said to me, and you can look up the Globe story in the clips back in 2012, November of 2021, just look up Gardner Museum, Robert Donati, and Finale, F-N-I-A-L, and you'll see the name of the jeweler and what he told the FBI. We also gave them a property in a suburb of Boston that Donati's sister and ex-wife had been living in around the time before his death.

And it was my sense that maybe Donati had dropped off material at that house. And the FBI appreciated that information. They searched their house diligently, but they didn't find anything. But that's where the mystery remains. You know, I think from the family of Bobby Donati, they run hot and cold as to whether or not he could have been responsible for this theft. It did take some artifice. It did take some wiles. And Bobby was, they didn't think Bobby had the smarts to do it.

but others who know Bobby particularly Miles Connor said he did and could have pulled this off. What's the secret? I think the secret goes through who killed Bobby Donati.

I think the family of Donati's family, his sisters, his son have been asked many times to help. They want to know who killed. their brother. And I think if they were taken into confidence by the FBI, that that information

might hold the key to them to get them to cooperate. And I've also thought about a social media campaign about this case, which, you know, continue to work on it low these many years. Why? Well, you know, art is important to us. It's important to Boston considers itself a world-class city. We're no longer ruled by the law or the street. We're no longer ruled by Omerta. Matthew, Matt, you can tell your audience what Omerter is. But it's no longer. They know. They know. It's no longer the operating code of principle here in Boston. You know, we survived the marathon bombing in 2013. Five people were killed a security guard and police officer

and just people who were at the marathon were killed. But so many lives were saved after that because of the valiant effort of the first responders and the people in the emergency rooms. In Boston fields, Boston has grown so much as a city than what was the operating principle of Ulmerta in 1990. And I think what the museum should do and what the FBI should do is put up in, the museum allows the empty frames.

On the second floor where those paintings, majestic paintings had once hung, are the empty frames. And I would put in front of those empty frames, not the FBI and not and not even the museum directors. They have you know, they've suffered valiantly the loss tragically

but I would put in front of those frames people who have street cred. Not bad guys, not that. But, you know, let's take the Cardinal O'Malley has tremendous credibility in both the have-world and the have-nought world here in Boston. And I would have him stand in front of those empty frames,

and I would tell them, have him retell the story of why Mrs. Gardner hung those paintings inside these galleries. It was for us. It was to make us more conscious, more aware, to elevate our artistic. sense. She did it for us. And it's no reason that these paintings remain hidden. And they were stolen to get someone out of jail in that, that never happened. And that effort failed and they were stashed away. Does someone know where they exactly where they are? I don't think so. I think if they did those, they wouldn't take advantage of the FBI offer of bring it forward, get in with a good

lawyer, you get your, bring in whatever the paintings look like now. They may be afraid. They may be, have a sign of the ages, warned from the ages that have passed by, but there still could be, recovery can be done. Artistic work can be done. Artistic work can be done. done on them. And with that, we could get those paintings would return onto the gallery walls. And we would fulfill the pledge that she gave to Boston, to make Boston. You know, she brought art to Boston. And that, she did it for us. She did it for the upper class and she did it for the have-noughts. And so get them back to Boston. This is important art work. Yes, Netflix did a terrific job last year, four hours worth of the mystery, but they didn't come to a conclusion.

And the conclusion, though, rests within Boston, within some of the neighborhoods of Boston. Even if you don't know, you have some pieces of information that could be valuable to the FBI, the museum, or if you don't go to a lawyer, a lawyer will represent you well and bring, and he will represent you and bring that information to the authorities. You'll be better off.

The museum will be better off. All of Boston will be better off. So that's my, that's the story that I've worked on for several years now. And I still consider it, Boston's last best secret. We remain to, you know, like I say, there's, you know, there's only two things that keep Boston from being a world-class city.

One of them is getting Boston another World Series championship, but also is getting our paintings back into the Gardner Museum. And it's a challenge that it'll stay in front of us until their paintings are returned. You know, the summer that I was working on writing my book, Massathies, was the summer of 2014. And it was the summer of the Ice Bucket Challenge. If you're too young, you might look it up. What your older brothers and sisters, if not your parents did, was they dumped buckets of ice over their heads and then challenged, put it and did so on Facebook and then challenged two or three of their friends to do likewise, as well as contribute to the research for to fight ALS, the Lou Gehrick's disease. for medical research to find a cure for ALS.

That summer, in July and August of that summer, that ice bucket challenge was promulgating out there, they raised $80 million for ALS research. The previous summer, $2 million. So social media can be a big, can be a big catalyst in drawing people's attention. And I think something like that could be done here. To get, arouse Boston, people who know something,

to arouse them with a, you know, a presentation by the Cardinal, are people of that stature, and have them challenge Boston that we await to become a world-class city and we can solve this by us, the citizenry of Boston. Forget the FBI.

Forget the museum. Forget the Hebs. This is our city. The city of the Hebs and the Heavnots. We showed that in the response to the Ice Bacca Challenge, to the response to the to the

to the marathon bombing. It's our responsibility calling on the conscience of Boston to return these paintings. And so the mystery needs to be solved. If the story doesn't get told, so be it.

I think the story, I've told the story as well as I can in the Boston Globe in my book Master Thieves. But the full story as to where they've been hidden all these years, so be it. Take availability, avail yourself

of the $10 million award that the museum has put out there and the pledge that the FBI has made that no one gets prosecuted if you tell them what you know and you, if not, bring

show them with the paintings ahead. So that's my presentation, Matt. Thank you very much for me on. What about Bobby I interviewed him, the mobster guy, kind of the ex-mobster guy. Bobby Louise?

Louise, thank you. What about the guy that spoke with him that said he knew they were buried under a slab in Florida or something? I mean So Bobby Louise,

he had been a mobster, had been a construction guy, gotten involved in a cocaine ring. Here in Boston in the late 90s, had two men working for him. One, a guy named Bobby Guarantee. And Bobby Guarantee had, you know, been a low-level mobster here in Boston.

got prosecuted, went to jail for 20 years for multiple bank robberies, got out in the early 90s and went on to near-do-well works and other criminal activity and one of the activities he bonded with Bobby Louise, whom you interviewed.

And they had a drug trafficking operation outside of Boston. And when they were at this house that they were pulled up at in the late 90s, or 98, a story about the Gardner Museum. Another, is there a big break to happen, came on TV, and Bobby Guarrenti said to to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, do you know where I could fence, uh, I've stolen artwork?

And Louise said, no, I don't know anything. out artwork. That's not my gig. Why? And he said, well, I may have some artwork hidden underneath a concrete slab underneath a house in Florida. So he told that to Louise in 98. So many, Louise gets prosecuted for other crimes. He gets locked up in the early O's and he tells the feds in the early OOs what he's been told and they go checking one door, check another, they find out Guarante is dead. And so they don't really follow up right then, but they go back to Guarantee. They go back to Louisiana. They go back to Louisiana. And Louise, he says, that's all he told me.

Well, around the same time, Guarantee's widow, about 2010, calls the FBI and says, I think my husband may have had access to those paintings. Separately? 2010. So, you know, I'm still doing my reporting for the Globe on it. this never makes the light a day then oh really where what did he do with them he gave him to his best friend barbie gentile who's who's bobby gentile oh he's a mobster low-level mobster lives in hartford outside of hartford well they go knock on bobby gentile's door

2010. Bobby Gentile, I'll weave in Louise's story into this. They knock on Gentile's story in 2010 and Gentile says to them,

oh yeah, I'm interested in that case, but Guarantee never gave me any of those paintings. He and I were very interested in that case because of the $10 million award. We said, you know, we knew some of these guys, bad guys.

We thought maybe we could find the paintings. We could get $5 million award from you guys. And the Fed said, we don't believe you. We'll give you a lie. I said, I'll take a lie detector test. Every time they gave him a lie detector test, he flunked it.

So what they did is they sent in an undercover agent to Bobby's house, Gentile's house, in Hartford. And the guy says to him, can you give me, do you have any stolen? do you have any guns? I like to get some guns. Gentile says to him, no, no, no. I don't deal in any guns, nothing, nothing. And then he sees some percocets on the counter there in Gentile's house.

Can I take these? He says, yeah, I use them for my back. Well, they prosecuted Gentile for giving the percocets. So they take Bobby, they get Bobby out of the house and they get a search warrant for the house. and they search the house, Gentiles' house, and they go through it. It's like a two-day search. And they don't find anything, except down in the basement, they find a piece of paper,

like a piece of paper like this. Right. And on it is a list of all the stolen pieces, the 13 stolen pieces, and what they would have gotten out of the black market. So now they know a little bit more about Gentile. And they say to him, where did you get this? He says, I didn't write that.

It's written in French. How would I read? Somebody that we had Guarenti and I went to said, and who knew our theft? He wrote that for us. Well, they stayed interested in Gentile. He got out of jail in 2014, and I went and visited him in his house. He let me come and visited him. I interviewed him for five hours.

He denied, denied, ever having access to any of the paintings. You know, but at the end of it, he said to me, you know, I've given you a lot of material here, and it is in my book. And he says, what do I get out of this? So I'm thinking to myself, this is in January, February 2014. why is Bobby Gentile looking he knows the lawyer had his lawyer had let me come to talk to him he knows I can't give him any money we can't reporters can't pay for interviews right so I said to him Bobby I can't give you any money but how about do you and I do this you have sworn on a stack

of eyeballs and on a lie detector test that you didn't have access you never saw any of the paintings let's say you know lying let's say you could tell me another story how about this i'll use you as a source i'm a lawyer and i am a reporter i'll source to what you tell me but i need to know no more bullshit i need to know where did you get the paintings from what paintings did you get where did you store them what happened to them? Why are you saying that, you know, even on your deathbed, this is 2014, on his deathbed in 2012, in jail, he said, I don't know, there are no paintings. I've never had any paintings. I said, why don't you tell me the truth? And I will split whatever this

book that I write with you, I'll split the proceeds with you. I'm thinking to myself, what am I, you know, giving him this line. This is a line of BS. Reporters don't work this way. Reporters don't set out a scheme like this. Tell me what you know and I'll put it into the book. But instead of saying, no, no, no, I don't know anything. I've denied it and that's the truth.

He puts his head down. And for 10 seconds, he keeps his head down. And I'm thinking, Jesus Christ, he's going to tell me the secret of the ages. and he puts instead he puts his head up and he looks to me right with those dark eyes those black eyes

no I told you the truth I know nothing nothing nothing I don't know I never had it never had anything so I said I give him a hug thank you for all the information you've given to me and it's all in my book

and I go out to my car and I call his lawyer the first thing Ryan McGuigan terrific lawyer in Hartford, Connecticut I said Ryan Terrific interview Last three days I've been talked to him for five hours But I think he's lying through his eye teeth

Everything he's telling me All these denials are lies And Ryan says What are you talking about lying? What lies? What does he say? I say well, you know I've got it all on tape But at the last point

He told me shut off the tape recorder And he offers me this deal what does he get out of this and when I say we could write a book together he won't do it but he said so you thought that if you split the proceeds of the book that he might go for it

and tell you a different story and I said yeah that's what he was why what else was he thinking about this option I gave it he said no this is what he was thinking about Steve he was thinking about I'm going to con this stupid reporter and I'm going to say to him give me $10,000

come back next week and we'll start working on the book but he knows a reporter you don't have $10,000 so he didn't give you that option but he's a con artist Steve he doesn't have any access to the paintings so there was one more secret that he that I asked him about

and that was in the shed then in his backyard I had been told that there was a shed and there was a shed in the backyard of Bobby's house and he gave me the keys to the shed.

I opened up the lock, opened up the shed door like every shed we have except there's a false floor it's a it's not the sheds floor it's another flooring why is there more other flooring is it was a false shed uh floor right bobby had taken the real sheds flooring out and dug ditches there were absolute ditches underneath the floors and in those ditches he would put rubber bins

and the fbi i believes that bobby had the paintings in those bins beneath the false floor but what had happened there had been a flood in the fall in the shed in bobby's backyard and that the the the the the flood flooding had got under the flooring into the into the into the into the rubber made bins and whatever were there had been ruined. So I said this to Bobby. I said, that's what happened. They were ruined in the bins. And he said, no, no, no, I know that's what the FBI says. But it's not. It was motors. I had some stolen motors. Who knows? But the secret ends with Bobby. And Bobby died last year this time, 2021 and I had interviewed him about April of last year of 2021 and I said to him I said Bobby the reason

why you don't want to tell the truth is because you did have the paintings and they did get ruined in the bins but you just don't want to be remembered you know he's an older older man now you don't want to be remembered this way as this man as the man who blew the artwork of the ages And he said, you know, it's a good theory, but it's not true. I never had the artwork. But, you know, that's where the FBI believes, and that's where the museum believes that the artwork ended up. It's in Bobby Louise, or Bobby Gentiles, false shed, not underneath the shed.

Both Louise, both Gentile and Guarantee were working. So I was doing a podcast with WBUR and The Globe and a podcast called Last Scene, 10 episodes about this case, and the last episode, the 10th episode, has about a dig that we did on a property that Guarantee had access to in Florida, outside of Orlando, and we did it in 2009. summer 2019 and we thought we had found it was an empty lot now we had some we you know we had gotten some um what are they call the kind of surveying work done on the on the lot and the surveyer said there is something beneath this ground that is an anomaly and uh the we gave them it we gave the report to the FBI and the FBI thought it was significant enough that they commissioned a search the Derek to go in and to dig it up but nothing nothing was found so um so you know like i said we've tried every option of investigative that investigative reporting and investigative work

can drink. So there has to be another approach to unlock this secret. And that's why I call on Boston to use the conscience of Boston to get this artwork back. And there is a transcendent reason. And that's because we get a recovery of the greatest art theft in world history. And we get paintings back that Mrs. Gardner wanted on the walls, on her museum's walls for all of us to appreciate. Okay. Well, thank you very much, Matt. Yeah, I appreciate that, you know, you got, you know, that you know, that you know, that you know, articulate the entire story so concisely. I mean, it's, it's great to just sit here and listen to you. Well, it has a lot of dead ends, and it has a lot of, you know, missed off.

It's horrible. But when you think of the, all you have to do is Google Gardner Museum, Art Theft, and the museum itself has a page to the theft on its, on its webpage, you know, that will go through all the detail and you'll see images of what was stolen and you'll see why you know if this is the artwork of the ages yeah why at least uh you know this this material does belong back on the walls of of what of these belles to work out of this year well you know it like it really all has to be together had they been broken apart and sold which is possible no right you know like you know whenever i talk to people they're like oh they were probably sold

well it would have to be someone some filthy rich japanese person or uh or an oligarchy or someone who's willing to put them all up and and all of them weren't valuable right there were some of Only four or five of them are stratophobic in value. But if you look at the, you know, if you look at the, like I said, the museum's web page on the works, to Rembrandt's, you wouldn't have broken them out of their frames and cut them out of the frames, as we did. No, that's damage. They did terrible damage to them.

But they can be, and the museum is willing to pay $10 million to get them back, they can be restored. And for any lessening of value to the paintings themselves, comes back to the recovery. And the recovery

was occasioned, was caused by Boston's. Boston's, conscience and generosity and that's that that remains to be seen i challenge you boston do it for do it for your grandkids do it for my grandkids i appreciate you watching and i bet you've never seen me that quiet on an episode or on a on a for an interview uh i've you know i don't know if i mentioned this before but like i've watched a couple of documentaries i've i've

remember studying this in in college. I've watched two documentaries. One of them is a is a multi-part series on Netflix about the Gardner Museum. I read a book that was written by the FBI agent that that investigated the Gardner heist. Really honestly, it's it's something that comes up over and over again. And you probably even watch, if you've ever watched like sneaky Pete that series they at one of the episodes or a couple I think it's one or two of the episodes is is based on the recovering of um of one of the paintings that was stolen the gardener museum super interesting uh you should check out the Netflix the Netflix documentary series and I appreciate you guys watching do me a favor share the video

subscribe hit the bell leave me a comment and I appreciate it and I We'll see you around.