Ex-girlfriend of Gardner Museum $1billion art heist suspect tells how the compulsive liar asked her to be his alibi
A LEADING suspect in the $500 million Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist pitched a film script mirroring the still unsolved caper - which culminated in the stolen art being destroyed and buried.
He met Ben Pollack, a 19-year-old director and scriptwriter in mid-July 1991, and used his fake credentials to woo the up-and-comer. was the smartest idiot I've ever encountered, and if you look at the art that was taken from the museum, and how random it all was, that's not the work of a criminal mastermind but an opportunistic moronIn the story, the two thieves had planned to sell the stolen art to a foreign buyer, hiding it in a cave until a deal could be struck.
The investigator believes McDevitt may have burned some of the art in a large fireplace in the home's living room. "As for the two statues, they're still around somewhere but whether he buried them someplace or chucked them in the Pacific Ocean, it's hard to tell." In violation of the museum's strict policies, the guard, Rick Abath, let the two men inside without obtaining permission from a supervisor.
The thieves moved quickly through the museum and were first captured on motion sensors in the Dutch Room at 1:48 am.A view of the Dutch Room and south wall of the courtyard of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston is picturedTwo of Rembrandt's renowned paintings were taken first: The Storm on the Sea of Galilee – his only seascape – and A Lady and Gentlemen in Black.
The museum at the center of McDevitt's foiled scheme was The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, which modeled itself on the Gardner Museum. The pair hijacked a Federal Express van, knocked out the driver with ether, and donned FedEx uniforms. Dating him at the time was Stéphanie Rabinowitz, who was then in her early 20s and trying to forge a career in the world of animation.
She wouldn't hear from him again until late on March 18 – hours after the Gardner heist, and by then she said he was calmer and appeared to be back to his usual, charming self. The male visitor is also seen getting out of a car matching the general description of the hatchback the two thieves escaped in.
There are further suspicions that he stole Mante's Chez Tortoni from the Gardner Museum's Blue Room on the first floor. By the summer of 1992, McDevitt was facing criminal charges for his harassment of Pollack and was on the verge of being dismissed from the Writers Guild. It was during their final meeting that McDevitt offered her a startling confession: he had been paid $300,000 to rob the Gardner Museum in 1990 and needed to leave the country immediately because the feds were closing in on him.
The following year, his attorney, Thomas E. Beatrice, reiterated his client's claims of innocence but revealed he'd declined to take a polygraph test, citing a "slight chance of error." Ulis believes the two men carried out the heist in association with a Jamaica-based crime syndicate that masterminded a similar heist in October 1987 at the Bettona Museum, near Perugia, Italy, where 28 paintings were stolen.The Italian police claimed at the time to know who carried out the theft but couldn't pursue charges against the suspects because they had since fled the country, perhaps to South America.
"There was an international drug ring based out of Jamaica at that time who had dealings with South America and it's my understanding the ring would use high-dollar art as collateral in deals.
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