Report: Failing Health Could Land Reputed Mobster/Art Heist Suspect Back Home in Manchester

MANCHESTER, CT — Robert Gentile, a reputed mobster who is a "person of interest in an infamous art heist, could be released from prison because of health complications, according to a Hartford Courant story.

Gentile was being held at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., awaiting trial on multiple federal weapons charges, a result of federal agents searching his Manchester home in the spring.

Gentile is an 80-year-old reputed mobster who the FBI acknowledges is a person of interest in the daring theft of classic paintings stolen from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, a heist valued at $500 million by authorities.

One art historian at the University of Connecticut, when asked over the spring week what the value might be, hinted that the paintings are priceless in some respects.

FBI spokesman Charles Grady politely declined comment when asked what agents might have be looking for after the search, asking for indulgence over “an ongoing investigation.” He reiterated what the FBI previously said - that the search of Gentile’s home was a "court-authorized activity in connection with an ongoing federal investigation."

Gentile’s Hartford-based lawyer, A. Ryan McGuigan, has not returned calls made at the time of the search.

The FBI has a web page dedicated to the heist. It tells the tale of March 19, 1990, the day two men, dressed as police officers, were able to get access into the Gardner museum, overpower and tie up security guards and steal 13 masterpieces by artists like Rembrandt, Vermeer and Manet.

The FBI also details the works on its Web site.

Rembrandt’s “The Storm in The Sea Of Galilee” was one work that went missing. It not only depicts a Biblical event in which Jesus eventually calms stormy seas in the midst of his disciples, but is considered the artist’s only seascape.

A Vermeer work, “The concert,” was one of only 36 in existence, the FBI and the museum pointed out.
"They are two examples of paintings that are irreplaceable to society," said Kathy Sharpless, the museum’s director of marketing and communications. "Society was robbed and the public is being prevented from experiencing these works. This is a crime against humanity."

Another stolen work is Manet’s "Chez Tortoni," a reference to a visitor to a cafe in Paris. An unidentified man sits at a table in a black coat and top hat with a glass of beer, a writing instrument and a tablet.

Empty frames hang where the paintings used to be at the museum. In the case of the Manet, a painting of the artist’s stern-looking mother looks even more lonely without her top-hatted neighbor. She is, after all, wearing mourning clothes after the death of her husband.

A $5 million reward is posted for efforts leading directly to the recovery of the art as part of the joint FBI-Gardner Museum investigation, stands.

Photo Credit: Rembrandt, courtesy of the FBI.