Gardner Museum Heist —Blog
The Gardner Heist documentary, This Is A Robbery from Netflix is bull from the very first line: "The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was an art thief's delight," states Myles Connors defense attorney, Martin Leppo, employing the they were asking for it defense.
Keller is credible enough to have worked on the security plans for the Gardner Museum's new addition, designed by Renzo Piano, and also to appear in this very documentary discussing the thieves movements, according to the motion sensor readout in a way that contradicted what the public has been told in the past.
"If Abath had followed protocol and called the Boston police, the fake cops would never have gotten into the Gardner," Anthony Amore said in 2016
This documentary mishcharacterizes museum security, the city's overall security, "It was the Wild West," the Boston Police response, and city residents, while letting the people who were in charge of the investigation, and took exclusive control while accomplishing the opposite of anything whatsoever, the FBI, off the hook, with other false statements, which will be brought to light in this blog in future posts. If there had been a serious attempt to apprehend the criminals, they would have been caught.
April 12, 2021 Robert Donati has a Woolworth Caper Alibi The Netflix Gardner documentary, "This is A Robbery, certainly spends a great deal of time, and effort, on the question of Robert Donati's possible involvement in the Gardner Museum heist. Everything they have on Bobby Donati that could conceivably be relevant, presumably is in it,Aside from claims that Donati grew up with this particular crook and was a close friend of that particular crook, there is very, very little in "This Is A Robbery," the Netflix documentary on the Gardner heist, that actually points to Donati's involvement, or for that matter for the involvement any of the crooks they associate him with.
Everything is anonymously sourced and uncorroborated. An anonymous source told Stephen Kurkjian, that at some point he saw Donati with a paper bag with two Boston police uniforms in it. This is the kind of stuff that might make for interesting filler, if Donati had been caught red handed, but to make the case based on these anonymously sources anecdotes is ridiculous.
Another anonymous source told Kurkjian, that Vincent Ferrara said, that Donati told Ferrara, that he robbed the Gardner to get Ferrara out of prison. Yet eighteen months later, Donati had done nothing to get Ferrara out and was found murdered in the trunk of his 1978 Cadillac Coup de Ville. Fourteen years after that, Ferrara was released from prison, his conviction overturned. No art recovered.
But one allegation about Donati's criminal past, that they go into in great detail in this documentary, is the claim by, an actual named source, art thief, among other things, Myles Connor, that Robert Donati was one of the thieves in the Woolworth Estate burglary of 1974. The claim in the documentary is based soley on the words of Myles Connor and not corroborated in any way.
On October 17, 1973, seven months before the Woolworth Estate burglary, Robert Donati was arrested While on bail, under indictment and still on parole, Donati wa arrested by Secret Service agents for receiving stolen prpoperty and possesion of counerfeit bills after a federal agnet purchased 515,000 worth of stolen US Treasury bill during the investigation. Then, less than two months after the Woolworth heist, Donati was sentenced to 4-6 years in state court and 10 years in federal court to run concurrently with his state sentence.Would Donati have risked the Woolworth job with these federal and state charges hanging over his head? Would the feds let Donati out on bail, when he was already out on bail and under indictment on an arson charge, as well as out on parole for a bank robbery, when he was arrested on these serious federal charges? We have only Connor's dubious word that Donati was roaming free on Memorial Day weekend, when his sentencing in both state and federal court was just weeks away.
https://gardnerheist.com/donati_parole_violating.pdf In that theft, three works by illustrator N.C. Wyeth and one by artist Andrew Wyeth were stolen in the burglary, which took place over the Memorial Day weekend in 1974. Interestingly, the N.C. Wyeth illustration were appraised higher than the work of his now more acclaimed, son Andrew Wyeth.
There is a happy ending to the story, for nearly everyone except Myles Connor. He was arrested on Cape Cod, with much of the art by the FBI in Mid-July of that same year. Some of the rest was taken from him in another FBI sting fifteen years later. File under "World's greatest art thief."
In this documentary, Connor claims, as he has stated previously that Donati was one of the people who burglarized the Woolworth Estate, and further, that it was Donati's deal. Donati was the mastermind, according to Connor. The word of Connor is the sole basisi for this claim.
Connor was labelled a charlatan by Anthony Amore in 2013, but that was before Connor was promoted to high echelon disinformant, and given an extreme media makeover. Then Connor went from cop shooting con man to folk legend almost overnight, and his world on these matters, gospel.
Yet Connor also has shown that he cannot keep his stories straight. He regularly makes claims that do not square with basic facts from accounts that appear in news stories and even his own book. The two nine-millimeter handguns used in the Boston MFA snatch-and-grab become two machine guns in Connor's retelling of that theft.
In a 2005 Boston Globe article, Connor's attorney Martin Leppo, who also appears in the Netflix documentary said Connor had "provided accurate information about the theft, but was unable to offer much help after his memory loss." Mores the pity. article, Connor's attorney Martin Leppo, who also appears in the Netflix documentary said Connor had "provided accurate information about the theft, but was unable to offer much help after his memory loss." Mores the pity.
It seems Connor's memory has not quite returned, concerning other topics and not just the Gardner Heist as well, but he has certainly been treated as though it has on all matters related to stolen art, which he may or not have personal knowledge about.
This article that quotes Connor's attorney about his memory loss, was written 16 years ago. And you have four of the principal players in this Netflix documentary represented: Myles Connor, his attorney Martin Leppo and then the story is written by Shelley Murphy, and another lawyer, Stephen Kurkjian. That's how utterly anaerobically sealed this narrative has become. Always and only the same old faces.
The documentary suggests that a mistrust of outsiders may have played a role in the completely abject failure of the investigation. I would agree, but I think the people whose mistrust of outsiders are the problem, are the very people in this documentary, who are ascribing mistrust of outsiders to others, just one of the many gas lighting facets of this documentary. The documentary provide the most unattractive footage possible of Boston's white working class to make their point, providing ample reason to justify a mistrust of others, especially people in the media, if they were not mistrustful already. A small price to pay, some apparently feel, to keep the story of the Gardner heist under lockdown.
The documentary runs footage of forced bussing demonstrators clashing with police, and mother's standing outside of South Boston high school at a protest rally, alongside a Catholic priest from 17 years before the heist, to make their point. And there is Boston Globe's Kevin Cullen, talking about how much cocaine people were snorting in Southie, which he assures is more than anywhere else in town. The closest thing you will find to expert testimony in this documentary.
These local journalists, all with ties to the Boston Globe, discuss how people in the neighborhoods are mistrustful of outsiders, and of organized crime, much less so, they suggest.
Then in Episode 3, the documentary strongsly suggests that the epicenter of the heist was TRC Automotice in Dorchester. "The feds in their account believe that the idea for this theft was hatched at Merlino's TRC Auto Body Shop on Dot Ave in Dorchester. But the guys they try to link to the robbery are not from Dorchester and did not live in Dorchester. David Turner is from Braintree, Reissfedler and Rossetti live in Quincy.
In Episode 4, Carmello Merlino is overheard saying on a surveillance wire: "Good Morning Viet Nam." TRC Automotive was in what had become a Viet Namese neighborhood. The TRC street address is in a section of the city that today is formally recognized as the Boston Little Saigon Cultural District. The purported neighborhood solidarity of white urban ethnics had nothing to do with the failure of this questionable FBI investigation. Aside from the primary source interviewees, it is a collection of guys with books, guys with law practices, Shelley Murphy, also an author, and more guys in need of some free publicity.The FBI didn't even talk to people in the neighborhoods about this case, and yet this documentary wants to suggest that one of the reasons that the case isn't solved is because the people in the neighborhoods are suspicious of outsiders.
They're suspicious? They're suspicious of outsiders? Both Last Seen Podcast and This Is a Robbery were made in secret. This Is A Robbery did about as much in the way of community outreach as the FBI, did in their Gardner heist investigation, which is zero. So who's holding back? Who is not sharing what they know again? Family members and loved ones need to share what they know? Huh Mike?
Writing in the Boston Globe in 2009, Shelley Murphy, who makes frequent appearances on this Netflix crockumentary, said of Myles Connor's book, 'The Art of The Steal,' that "the book is clearly shaded by Connor's version of the truth." It does not seem, however, that Murphy advised the Barnicle Brothers who made this documentary, the extent to which Connor's words are inconsistent with the facts.
Or maybe she is herself at times fooled by Connor. Since his claims are not fully cross checked in this review.
In her review, Murphy wrote that "Connor masterminded the MFA robbery, donned a brown wig and leather chauffeur's cap to cover his red hair, grabbed the Rembrandt, and cracked its frame while making his frantic getaway."But the description police sent out of the thief on the day of the robbery said that the thief who grabbed the Rembrandt was "a white male, about 20 years of age, 5-foot-9 about 140 pounds, with long blond hair." Connor was 32 at the time, shorter, heavier, and claimed he was wearing a brown wig
Even though the Woolworth art theft was a burglary, not a robbery, and took place sixteen years earlier in rural Maine as opposed to a big city, it could potentially indicate something. That Donati should have been interviewed by the FBI, for instance, which he was not. It could show he had at least some of the ways and means as well as the inclination to pull off a Gardner museum type heist. However, not long before the Woolworth robbery, while "on bail under indictment and still on parole, Donati was arrested by the Secret Service for receiving stolen property and possession of counterfeit bills." He was sentenced in July of 1974, less than two months after the Woolworth burglary, and separately in state court on arson charges that same month. The Woolworth estate robbery was over Memorial Day weekend, So unless the feds let Donati out on bail on the counterfeiting charge - again - when had arrested him while he was both out on bail and on parole, then Donati was in jail when the Woolworth burglary occurred. Donati received ten years on the federal charge and six on the state arson charge, to be served concurrently. Had he been caught, burglarizing the Woolworth Estate at that time, while out on double bail, if such a thing is even possible, Donati risked receiving longer sentences and nonconcurrent longer sentences, so more than sixteen years instead of ten for the crimes for which he had already been convicted plus whatever he got for the Woolworth crimes, which would represent a completely unacceptable risk. But it would also have been an unacceptable risk for feds to let out a guy an arsonist, who was out on parole, for the armed robbery of $40,000 worth of furs from a Boylston Street store. seems doubtful that the feds would risk the embarrassment of letting a parolee they arrested while out on bail, out to get out and get caught on additional crimes. The lax treatment of Donati was soon news and the feds were quoted as not happy about it. Given the fact that for Donati to have helped rob the Woolworth estate, 16 years before the Gardner heist, he would have to have been: on parole, on bail from state felony charges and federal felony charges, and thus unlikely to have been let loose to commit more crimes, This is a robbery should be required to offer up more evidence than the questionable word of Myles Connor. Even under the best circumstance it is a weak indicator of Donati's possible involvement without a good deal more supporting evidence.April 8, 2021 The Good News About the Netflix documentary about the Gardner Heist, This Is A Robbery
Despite my incessant griping yesterday on twitter I prefer the term "fact checking," I'm pretty satisfied about the new Netflix documentary on the Gardner heist, "This Is a Robbery." For one thing, I like how Robert Fisher pushed back against the ridiculous falsehead that the guy in the heist eve video is Gardner Heist is a museum employee. It also reports on several aspects of the FBI's investigation, which might well lead people to question the sincerity of purpose in Gardner Heist investigation, especially as it relates to apprehending the criminals. It also delivers solid interviews with Gardner Heist eyewitnesses never heard from before, as well as Gardner security staff, although these interviews are not as important or interesting as the one by podcast Empty Frames of former Gardner security guard, Marjorie Galas. Rather than flooding the zone with, um, a myriad of theories like Last Seen podcast did, this documentary focuses fairly narrowly on the state sponsored disinforming narrative that posits that Bobby Donati and some members of the TRC automotive gang were responsible. Dissembling shills Stephen Kurkjian and Shelley Murphy are permitted to make their case in full in this documentary, in their role as reporter-which-is-kinda-sorta-the-same-thing-as-a-historian. A case which real historians 30 years from now, will only find noteworthy, if at all, in how it showed just how serviley and slavishly devoted some reporters could be in spinning a narrative that is pleasing to their sources, and to do anything that keeps them in the Gardner heist "key," in perpetuity, so that even if visitors from Mars confess to the crime and return the art tomorrow, they'll be the ones standing under the basket to take thee easy bank shot. Barnicle Brothers claim they vetted all theories. Hah. I make a more compelling case in one tweet than they make in four episodes. But the documentary does lay it out in lavish, unabashedly inconsisten detail. Episode four presents the whole case of what "The Gardner Heist" author, Ulrich Boser once called "the crew-ish," theory, which is that we don't know precisely who did the Gardner Heist but we know the crew is. These local toughs, associated with Robert Gurente, Robert Gentile, Robert Donati and Vincent Ferrara. Waitching it, one might well think that the Barnicle Brothers believe that Boston's cottage industry of Gardner heist artisans is on the level, that somehow only the Boston Police and Massachusetts State police were shut out of the case, and not other honest members of the community, from other professions with a public role, such as journalists too.I do agree with an an ApolloMagazine review which termed this documentary's gaggle of whodunnit-ers as "red herring suspects," but at least the documentary takes the theory from a bunch of aspersions enveloped in a dizzying of array of of cross-references, qualifications and digressions into more of an assertion phase of the theory, that is something resembling a coherent whole, that takes a stand: These are the guys.
Yes there an embarassing number of factual errors but in presenting their theory their effort is so lacking in facts that they really cannot be faulted for getting them wrong.
At least the theory is no longer just "broadly hinting" as Howie Carr described it in in 2015, but in this documentary it is flushed out in the open so people can decide for themselves if it makes any sense at all, which it unfortunately does not, although many no doubt like the Barnicle Brothers themselves will accept this institutionally disseminated but nonetheless crackpot theory. I for one intend to go over every detail with a fine tooth comb and demonstrate just how foolish and illogical this theory of the case is. It is also unfortunate, that in the strain to make their case, weak as it is, that the city of Boston, its working people, and neighborhoods, its critical thinking abilities and proessional integrity are put in such a negative light, on to the whole world, unfairly, inaccurately, and unsupported by facts or evidence to a ridiculous degree. Copyright © 2021 All Rights Reserved