Wednesday, January 20, 2016

A Gentile Gambit

If at first you don't succeed...

The Globe allowing itself to be used as an FBI mouthpiece again.

"FBI still believes mobster knows about Gardner art theft" by Shelley Murphy Globe Staff  January 06, 2016

HARTFORD -- The new details about the ongoing investigation into the world’s largest art heist and Boston’s most enduring mystery emerged during a hearing on a motion by Robert Gentile’s lawyers to dismiss the new gun charges on the grounds of egregious government misconduct.

Hartford defense attorney A. Ryan McGuigan argued that Gentile was “living a quiet life” after serving 30 months in prison for illegally possessing a gun and selling prescription drugs to an FBI informant, when the government improperly cajoled him into committing new crimes in its quest to find the artwork. 

They do it all the time. Threaten, cajole, extort, whatever.

The judge rejected the defense motion, ruling that the government had a justifiable interest in pursuing Gentile and had not acted improperly.

“There is a legitimate law enforcement interest in trying to recover the paintings,” US District Judge Robert N. Chatigny said. He noted that even though the statute of limitations for the theft of the artwork expired years ago, it is not too late to prosecute someone for possessing it or transporting it across state lines.

The Gardner heist took place in the early morning hours of March 18, 1990. Two men dressed as police officers talked their way into the museum on the Fenway, tied up the two guards, and fled with 13 masterworks....

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Don't worry. I'm taking it gently.

"Gardner suspect’s sentence was cut" by Shelley Murphy and Stephen Kurkjian Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent  January 14, 2016

The government secretly reduced the prison term of a longtime suspect in the 1990 robbery of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum several years ago, raising questions about whether he agreed to help authorities recover the $500 million worth of stolen masterworks.

David Turner, who was sentenced to 38 years in prison for the 1999 attempted robbery of an Easton armored car company and not scheduled for release until at least 2032, is now expected to be freed in 2025, according to the US Bureau of Prisons website.

The US attorney’s office, the FBI, and Turner’s lawyer, Robert Goldstein, declined to comment on why, or even when, seven years were shaved off Turner’s sentence.

It’s unclear whether the 48-year-old Braintree native, who emerged as a suspect in the Gardner heist in the early 1990s, provided any information to authorities in exchange for leniency.

However, Turner’s possible involvement in the ongoing investigation surfaced recently during federal court proceedings in Hartford involving Robert Gentile, a Connecticut mobster who is awaiting trial on gun charges and is suspected by the FBI of having access to the stolen paintings.

In late 2010, Turner wrote a letter from prison to Gentile instructing him to call Turner’s girlfriend. She then asked Gentile to meet with two of Turner’s associates about recovering the stolen artwork, according to Gentile’s lawyer.

Gentile, who was cooperating with the FBI at the time, refused to meet with the pair and introduce them to an FBI informant because of fear for his safety, according to court filings.

A federal prosecutor disclosed last week in court that Gentile and his friend Robert Guarente, who died in 2004, unsuccessfully tried to negotiate the return of two stolen Gardner paintings in exchange for a sentence reduction for one of Guarente’s associates. The associate, who was not named in court, was Turner, according to two people familiar with the incident.

When told of Turner’s sentence reduction, Gentile’s lawyer, A. Ryan McGuigan, said in an interview, “I think it means that he was cooperating with the federal government in trying to aid them in gleaning information as to the whereabouts of the paintings.”

He added that an inmate would generally have to provide significant cooperation to get seven years knocked off a very long sentence.

“Obviously, whatever [Turner] was offering didn’t pan out because we’re in 2016 and we still don’t know where the paintings are,” McGuigan said.

In 2013, the FBI announced it was confident it had identified the thieves, but declined to name them, citing the ongoing investigation.

What they were trying to do was trigger leads and they use false stories in the media to do it. 

NY, LA schools receive same e-mail threat
Los Angeles officials defend school closure
Nine Mass. schools receive bomb threats
More schools across Mass. receive bomb threats

Hmmm. 

Who do you think is making those calls?

Authorities said they believed some of the artwork changed hands through organized crime circles, and moved from Boston to Connecticut and then to Philadelphia, where the trail went cold. Later, the FBI said it believed the two thieves were dead.

Same as my interest in any of this.

Turner is being held at the federal prison in Devens and could not be reached for comment. However, in a 2013 e-mail to a Globe reporter he wrote, “1st and foremost I have not, nor ever will cooperate with authorities.”

In response to a request for an interview about his possible knowledge of the whereabouts of the Gardner paintings, Turner wrote that he distrusted reporters and added, “I am not a treasure hunter.”

Don't we all?

The Gardner heist was the largest art theft in history and remains one of Boston’s most baffling mysteries. Two men dressed like police officers talked their way into the museum in the early morning of March 18, 1990, tied up two guards, and fled with 13 pieces of art....

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Now they are going after his son on a marijuana rap.

Also seeLatest search for Gardner paintings came up empty

Same as yours for anything meaningful on this blog. What a suck.

NDUs:

Methuen school evacuated after e-mail threat

Milford High School closed after getting bomb threat

Robo-call bomb threats, gimme a break. 

And they don't have a clue where they are coming from as this massive dose of Pavlovian psyops is foisted upon the kids to condition them for the future society.