Aside from some claims, however, that Donati grew up with this particular crook and was a close friend of that particular crook, there is little, very little, in fact nothing at all, that points to Donati's involvement. Or for that matter for the involvement in the heist of any of the crooks they associate him with.
Why would people go through all of this trouble?
So desperate are they to pin this on Donati, that in Episode Three Kevin Cullen says: In that period, I could see a serious organized criminal saying, "you know what? This is a good time to do this?" Who would be in a position to do something like this?And then in four voiceovers you hear the reply:
First, Shelley Murphy: Bobby Donati.
Second, Myles Connor: Bobby Donati.
Third, Stephn Kurkjian: Bobby Donati.
And fourth Martin Leppo: Bobby Donati.
Everything in this documentary about Donati 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. It is the kind of anecdote that might make for interesting filler, if Donati had been caught red handed, but to make the case based on these anonymously, sourced tales is ridiculous.
According to Kurkjian, twenty years after Donati died, another anonymous source said that Vincent Ferrara said, that Bobby Donati said, that he had robbed the Gardner to get Ferrara out of prison.
Yet eighteen months later, Donati had done nothing to get Ferrara out of prison with the stolen Gardner art or by any other means, and was then found murdered in the trunk of his 1978 Cadillac Coup de Ville, very possibly because Donati himself was one of the chief reasons Ferrara was in prison in the first place, a possibility that was raised as an issue in open court, five years after Donati was slain. "Anthony M. Cardinale, lawyer for indicted New England Mafia boss Francis P. "Cadillac Frank" Salemme and his associate and codefendant Robert DeLuca, said the defense had just learned that Donati may have been the unnamed informant who wore a hidden device to record conversations of convicted Mafia captain Vincent Ferrara," the Boston Globe reported on June 24, 1997. In 2021 wrote to me in a twitter DM that "Bobby Donati was a knock around guy who was essentially Vin Ferrara’s 'driver' (who I was then representing). When I met him [Donati], circa 1988-9, he was, in my humble opinion, not in any way involved [in the Gardner heist], just not what he would have been doing at the time."As far as Kurkjian's claim in his book that shortly before the Gardner heist, a close friend of his noticed that Donati was carrying two Boston police uniforms, and so then "pressed a taser playfully into Donati’s side and pulled the trigger," which "did quite a number on Donati," Cardinale said: "There’s no way anyone tased Donati and didn’t wind up in an intensive care facility or underground."
One allegation about Donati's criminal past, that they go into in this documentary, is the claim by an actual named source, Myles Connor, that Robert Donati was one of the thieves in the Woolworth Estate burglary of 1974. The claim in the documentary is based solely on the words of Myles Connor, and not corroborated in any way.
In that theft, three works by illustrator N.C. Wyeth and one by his son, a watercolor by artist Andrew Wyeth, were stolen from the Woolworth family's estate, called Cleariew Farm in Monmouth, Maine. A reproduction of an Andrew Wyeth painting was also taken. Naturally to the irrepressible Kurkjian, in this documentary, it became that "they stole five or six Wyeth paintings. Important paintings. And he had a partner with him. His great friend Bobby Donati."
The burglary took over place at some time over the Memorial Day weekend, on Saturday, May 25th according to Connor. Interestingly, the N.C. Wyeth works were then appraised at a higher value, than the work of his now more acclaimed, son, artist Andrew Wyeth.There is a happy ending to the story for nearly everyone except Myles Connor, who was arrested on Cape Cod, trying to sell the Wyeth paintings to an FBI undercover agent, in Mid-July of that same year. One of the other items stolen in that 1974 robbery, an antique Simon Willard grandfather clock, was recovered from Connor in another FBI sting in Bloomington, IL, fifteen years later. File under "The greatest art thief who ever lived," on one of Anthony Amore's "elaborate spreadsheets."
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. His word is the sole basis for this claim.
Before he became a "good friend" of Anthony Amore, Connor was labelled by him a "charlatan"in 2013, and "a real bad guy," in 2014.
But that was before Connor was promoted to high echelon disinformant, and given an extreme media makeover, before he went from cop shooting con man to art thief extrodinaire folk legend almost overnight; his word on matters related to art crime, gospel.Connor has time and again shown that he cannot keep his stories straight. Not that it matters, as with Amore, Connor can make claims that do not square with established, provable fact, without consequence.
In the case of the Boston MFA robbery in 1975, two men armed with nine-millimeter handguns, and a third man waiting in a stolen Ford Grand Torino, were responsible for the robbery, according to the news accounts of the day. But that becomes eight armed men, one with a machine gun, and a getaway van. The van serves as the setting for an epic struggle between an MFA security guard and the thieves, in Connor's retelling of that theft forty years later.
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."
It seems Connor's memory has not quite returned, concerning other topics and not just the Gardner Heist. But he certainly is treated as though it has fully returned on all matters related to stolen art, he decides to weigh in on, in documentaries like this one on Netflix, and others on the "History" Channel, and heavily promoted blogs like "Last Seen Podcast."
This Globe article describing Connor's memory problems, written 20 years ago, has four of the principal players in this Netflix documentary represented: Myles Connor, his attorney Martin Leppo, and the two journalist who wrote it, Shelley Murphy, plus another lawyer, and Boston Globe reporter, Stephen Kurkjian. That's how utterly anaerobically sealed this narrative has become. Always and only the same old dissembling faces.
The documentary suggests that a mistrust of outsiders may have played a role in the completely abject failure of the investigation.
"There was sort of, like, a code of silence. You know you could have twenty people in a bar witness a fatal shooting and nobody saw anything," the endlessly dissembling Shelley Murphy says.
But, in fact, the people whose mistrust of outsiders are the problem, are the very people who report about the Gardner heist in this documentary. This Is A Robbery provides the most unflattering footage possible of Boston's working-class residents, using archive footage of an anti-busing/anti-desegregation demonstration from 1973, 17 years before the Gardner heist, from a local PBS affiliate, WBZ. The footage shows demonstrators clashing with police, and a mother, who seems to have left her dentures at home that day, standing outside of South Boston High School at a protest rally, a Roman Catholic priest at her side. And there is a voice-over by Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen: "Boston is a city of neighborhoods. It's really important to understand how organized crime works in the city of Boston."The Godmother?
And then this crockumentary shows Cullen talking about how much cocaine people were snorting in South Boston back in the day where he was living, at the time of the robbery, which he says was probably more than the people anywhere else in all of Boston. "Right on the bar tops" he recalls assuringly, like he's fingering his umpteenth thirty-day-chip, while relaying the tale.
The Boston of Netflix, This Is A Robbery, is a city of neighborhoods and the feral residents of those neighborhoods are to be trusted as much as they are trusting of outsiders, which is to say, not at all.
Of course, those responsible for the Gardner heist are from within their fold. Of course they are withholding information from the authorities; not the journalist from Southie, Murphy and Cullen, the journalist from Dorchester, Kurkjian, or the investigators from out of state, running this long running show, but these residents in this "city of neighborhoods." This is just one of the many gas lighting aspects of this documentary, and it provides ample justification for city residents to be mistrustful of outsiders, if they weren't already, especially of people in the media. But it's a small price to pay, scapegoating the powerless, to keep the real story of the Gardner heist under lockdown, for another few years.When someone asked Kurkjian, a year after his book came out, "are you convinced that Rick {Abath] the guard had no part in this?" Kurkjian replied: "No I'm not I'm not convinced. There's a lie when I interviewed him for the book, I had interviewed him many times over the years, he always told me that he was a druggie, but he said he was on pills, and he was on pot. And then when I interviewed him for the book, he told me he was on, he had used cocaine. and that — cocaine in 1990 — you're in a different group of people, than you are buying pot. You're with the bad guys."
So, it was significant enough to change Kurkjian's view of Abath, but not significant enough to include in his book. So, who is holding back what they know?And when Abath was interviewed by CNN, an interview Kurkjian claims to have set up, on a news special that Kurkjian himself was interviewed on, Abath said: "They finished cuffing me and they cuffed my partner and very dramatically said, 'Gentlemen, this is a robbery.'"
But in Kurkjian's book which he began about the time that interview aired, and completed the following year, he wrote: “This is a robbery, gentlemen,” one of the men said almost matter-of-factly.“Who is holding back what they know?
Why does Kurkjian make the moment less dramatic? Why does he change the order of the words? Because "Gentleman, the is a robbery," really does not fit the cast of character presented in his book, or in this documentary, which in its very title shortens the robber's words to:This Is A Robbery. The way the thief said it, sounds more like James Bond, or someone in "The Thomas Crown Affair." And as Kurkjian said in a 2016 interview, "the most important thing is to keep [your] eye on the narrative." In Master ThievesKurkjian wrote: "Abath did not understand the size of the robbery or what had been stolen until he read the headlines the next morning coming out of his hotel in Hartford." "Realizing immediately that he had to be considered an accomplice, and that his leaving the city would raise deeper questions, Abath abandoned any plan he had to stay to see the band’s second performance that night and drove quickly back to Boston."But in Episode Two of this Netflix documentary, there is an audio recording of Abath saying to Kurkjian in a 2013 interview, that after the robbery, "I was planning on calling in sick that next night, because I had tickets to the Grateful Dead shows in Hartford. So, I left town and went down to Hartford to see the shows. And I had a great time, drinking and smoking reefer. I did a bunch of acid the first night. I think I did mushrooms the second night. Then I came back to Boston.
So, who is, not only telling not telling what they know, but also instead plainly telling people what is at variance with what they know? How about? Shelley Murphy: Stephen Kurkjian Myles Connor: Stephen Kurkjian Stephen Kurkjian: Stephen Kurkjian Martin Leppo: Stephen Kurkjian In a 2021 editorial Kurkjian wrote: "Although the FBI remains mum about the status of the investigation, the mystery surrounding Bobby Gentile’s involvement remains a reminder that a new approach might be worth considering." And: "Since the theft in 1990, Boston has changed; it’s become a world-class city and omertà[a code of silence] is no longer the operating principle."But then two months later, the Boston Globe reported: "Over the past year, [Paul] Calantropo has been working behind the scenes with an unlikely assortment of sleuths — including a retired law enforcement official, two former convicts and retired Boston Globe investigative reporter Stephen Kurkjian — in hopes of finding the artwork, which Kurkjian did not include in his editorial.
So, it is indeed Stephen Kurkjian who is not disclosing what he knows.
The only outsiders in this documentary are the people from "the neighborhoods," in an actual Gardner heist context, who are never interviewed, and merely serve as a surly backdrop, and yet it is they who are accused without evidence, of being the source of the perpetrators, and the coverup. Diversity? Everyone is white, and there was just one woman, Shelley Murphy. Except for an eyewitness interview. All of the on-camera people easily qualify for the senior discount at Sea World. It's marketing professional's dream-demographic, if your clients are in the reverse home mortgage and vinyl replacement windows business. In others words, an accurate microcosm of the individuals, who can be trusted with working the federal law enforcement, and courthouse, beats in Boston.Aside from the primary source interviewees, it is a collection of guys with books, guys with law practices, guys defending rich folks now. in federal court, Shelley Murphy, also a true crime author, and more guys desperate for some free publicity.
The FBI didn't even interview 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 and would not talk.
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?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 Brother 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.But even if the Feds had released Donati after his arrest, while he was out on bail, under indictment for arson, and still on parole for armed robbery, Donati was sentenced only three days before the May 25, 1974 Woolworth estate burglary. Police said the theft occured sometime over the Memorial Day, three-day weekend, according to newspaper accounts. Connor wrote in book that the theft was on the Saturday of the three day weekend, which was May 25th.
A Middlesex Superior Court judge sentenced Donati to 4-8 years in Walpole State prison on May 22, of 1974. for arson, as well as an unspecified amount of time remaining on the 12-20 year sentence, he had received for the armed robbery of a furrier on Boston's Boylston Street, for which he was still on parole.While those sentenced to prison on Federal Court sometimes get time to get their affairs in order or file an appeal, those sentenced in the state court system go straight to prison from their sentencing.
Since Donati received ten years on the federal charge and 4-8 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, besides more of Myles Connor's uncorroborated claims.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 falsehood 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 servile, 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 inconsistent 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 Guarente, 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 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 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.
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 professional integrity are put in such a negative light, in a way that is completely unsupported by the facts.by Kerry Joyce Copyright © 2026 All Rights Reserved
